Sam R. Alapati is an experienced Oracle database administrator who holds the Oracle Certified Professional designation and the Hewlett-Packard UNIX System Administrator certification. He currently manages Oracle databases at the Boy Scouts of America's national headquarters in Los Colinas, Texas. Alapati has been dealing with databases for a long time, including the Ingres RDBMS in the mid-1980s. He is also well-versed in the Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase, and IBM DB2 database management systems.

• Background, Data Modeling, and UNIX/Linux.- The Oracle DBA’s World.- Relational Database Modeling and Database Design.- Essential UNIX (and Linux) for the Oracle DBA.- Oracle Database 10g Architecture, Schema, and Transaction Management.- to the Oracle Database 10g Architecture.- Schema Management.- Oracle Transaction Management.- Installing Oracle Database 10g, and Creating and Upgrading Databases.- Installing the Oracle Database 10g RDBMS.- Upgrading to Oracle Database 10g.- Creating an Oracle Database.- Connectivity and User Management.- Connectivity and Networking.- User Management and Database Security.- Using SQL*Plus and iSQL*Plus.- Data Loading, Backup, and Recovery.- Loading and Transforming Data.- Using Data Pump Export and Import.- Backing Up Databases.- Database Recovery.- Managing the Operational Oracle Database.- Automatic Management and Online Capabilities.- Managing and Monitoring the Operational Database.- Using Oracle Enterprise Manager.- Managing Oracle Databases on Windows and Linux Systems.- Performance Tuning.- Improving Database Performance: SQL Query Optimization.- Performance Tuning: Tuning the Instance.- The Data Dictionary, Dynamic Views, and the Oracle-Supplied Packages.- The Oracle Data Dictionary and the Dynamic Performance Views.- Using Oracle PL/SQL Packages.