Chapter 1. Introduction to Oracle9i

This book will illustrate many of the new Oracle9i database features while proving to be a good learning aid to Oracle Programming. This chapter will focus on some introductory topics such as what is a relational database, what is SQL, the Oracle9i database architecture, and a brief description of the tools that will be used throughout this book. The book is also subdivided into four parts: learning the basics, building applications, tuning issues, and working with tools and utilities. Each of the chapters in these sections will follow these themes.

The reader will learn:

• What is a relational database

• How the SQL language came to be

• Various aspects of the Oracle9i database architecture

• A cursory view of various Oracle related utilities and tools