Administration involves:

• Creating and maintaining schema objects, such as tables and indexes
• Backup and recovery
• Granting permissions to users
• Performance tuning
• Monitoring the condition of the database
• Administering network connections
• Administering database security

To observe and customize database settings from SQL, you can query the data dictionary views and read or set initialization parameters for an individual session or the whole database.

To keep your database available at all times, you can use these software components:

Data Guard provides a standby database for disaster recovery:

Oracle Net helps you manage connectivity, security, and performance across both Internet and intranet networks:

The database includes a built-in Web server. You can build Web-based front ends to stored procedures for data entry and reporting:

You can use Recovery Manager (RMAN) to back up and recover Oracle databases. The new Oracle Backup media management utility enables you to back up and restore any files on the file system. RMAN can also use the Oracle Backup SBT interface to back up database files to tape.

SQL is the underlying language for all database programming. PL/SQL is tightly integrated with SQL, usually for code running inside the database such as triggers, stored procedures and functions, and PL/SQL packages. SQL*Plus is the command-line tool for running SQL and compiling PL/SQL.

In addition to the individual books for each environment, there is an online quick reference that combines all three environments.

Security involves many aspects, such as network protocols, user privileges, and encryption:

Oracle Database 10g includes many automated performance features, which you access through Oracle Enterprise Manager. You can also learn about and use detailed performance features, such as indexes, hints, and performance-related views in the data dictionary:

These books cover specific aspects of administering Oracle: