Cost-Based Oracle Fundamentals

Lewis, director of the UK Oracle User Group, describes the cost-based optimizer and other commonly used parts of the Oracle database model. An understanding of the model will allow readers to fix entire problem areas, not just single SQL statements, by adjusting the model or creating more truthful statistics. Focus is on selectivity and cardinality, access paths, and join order. Annotation © 2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Jonathan Lewis has been working in the IT industry for nearly 25 years, and has been using the Oracle RDBMS for more than 20. For the last 16 years he has been working as a freelance consultant, often spending only one or two days at a time with any client to address critical performance problems. He also advises on design and implementation problems, and on how to make best use of the most appropriate Oracle features for a given project.

Jonathan is also renowned throughout the world (having visited 42 countries at the last count) for his tutorials and seminars about the Oracle database engine and how to make best use of it; His exceptional ability has earned him an O1 visa from the United States, allowing him to do consultancy and lecture work there.

Jonathan has written two books about Oracle (Practical Oracle8i, Addison-Wesley, 2000; Cost-Based Oracle Fundamentals, Apress, 2005) as well as contributing to two others (Oracle Insights, Apress, 2004; Oracle Database 10g New Features, Oracle Press, 2004). He also writes regularly for the UKOUG magazine, and occasionally for other publications around the world. In the limited amount of time he has left over, Jonathan also publishes high-tech Oracle articles on his blog at jonathanlewis.wordpress.com.