Oracle made a big decision a couple of years ago. The company decided to open certain aspects of its relational database management system (RDBMS) to manipulation by outside software. That architectural decision enabled a whole community of specialized software developers to thrive. In Oracle & Open Source, Andy Duncan and Sean Hull explore the universe of open source (that is, modifiable and largely free) software for Oracle applications. The authors approach the subject from two angles: that of database administrators who simply want to locate, download, and use tools that others have created, and that of the software developer who wants to learn about and take advantage of the hooks Oracle has built into its products.

The downloaders will be pleased with documentation of Orac, Oddis, Karma, Oracletool, GNOME-DB, and other ready-to-run administration and design tools. The book explains what each tool does, where it comes from, how to install it, and how to use it (complete with hallmark O'Reilly options lists in most cases). The programmer set, eager to contribute to the collection of open-source Oracle tools, will learn a lot from documentation of Oracle-specific libraries for various languages, including Oratcl for Tcl/Tk, several Perl modules, DCOracle for Python, and the Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) classes for Java. Some programmers may find the introductory sections too general in focus, but they'll be pleased by sections that explain the use of specific methods and functions. --David Wall

Topics covered: The collection of libraries that have come into existence to facilitate interaction with Oracle databases from within home-grown software, as well as programs that others have written to take advantage of those libraries.


Book Description
Oracle & Open Source is the first book to tie together the commercial world of Oracle and the free-wheeling world of open source software. Today, there are many excellent and freely available software tools that Oracle developers and database administrators can use, at no cost, to improve their own coding productivity and their system's performance. Oracle & Open Source describes close to 100 open source tools you can use for Oracle development and database administration, from large and widely known open source systems (like Linux, Perl, Apache, TCL/Tk and Python) to more Oracle-specific tools (like Orasoft, Orac, OracleTool, and OraSnap). This book shows you how to obtain the software, how to adapt it to best advantage, and how to go about releasing your own software to the open source community. The book abounds with code examples, download and installation instructions, and helpful usage hints.


Book Info
Offers complete coverage of the open source tools and applications of Oracle, including integration of Perl, Tcl, Python, Apache, Linux, GNOME/GTK+, and Java. A special introduction to these applications for developers looking to build open source applications, tieing together the commercial world of Oracle and the world of open source software. Softcover.

FROM OUR EDITORS

b>The Barnes & Noble Review
The Oracle database is emphatically not open source: just try to imagine Larry Ellison giving anything away for free! However, a thriving community of open source developers has sprung up around Oracle. Oracle has been ported to Linux. What's more, Oracle Corporation has incorporated certain open source technologies into its own product lines.

Until now, however, it's been difficult for Oracle developers to get a good fix on the open source resources available to them. Open source newsmedia rarely focus on Oracle-oriented projects; Oracle information sources tend to focus on commercial products.

In Oracle & Open Source, all that changes. Andy Duncan and Sean Hull -- themselves developers of open source Oracle tools -- profile nearly 100 open source tools for Oracle development and database administration. You'll learn where to get the software, how to install it, and how to adapt it to your specific needs. The breadth of these software tools will be an enormously pleasant surprise to most Oracle professionals.

If the existing tools aren't enough, Duncan and Hull also demonstrate exactly how to use open source languages such as Perl, Tcl/Tk, and Python to build your own solutions (which they gently encourage you to share with the community!)

The authors start with an in-depth look at the Oracle Call Interface (OCI), the Oracle API used by open source software to connect with the Oracle database. They present a full chapter on a classic example of open source database connectivity: the Perl Database Interface (DBI) module and its Oracle-specific driver, DBD::Oracle.

Next, they introduce scripted GUI solutions for Oracle administration and development -- solutions built with Perl/Tk, Tcl/Tk, and Python. In the Tcl community, the solution of choice is Oratcl, which has actually been adopted by Oracle itself as an interface to the Oracle Enterprise Manager. In Python, it's DCOracle; in Perl/Tk, it's the aforementioned DBI and DBD::Oracle.

What can you do with these tools? Oracle & Open Source presents two excellent examples. There's Orac, built in Perl/TK by co-author Andy Duncan as a tool for database management and performance tuning; and Oddis, a similar tool built with Tcl/Tk, and offering robust SQL tuning capabilities.

Next, the authors offer a practical overview of the key open source (and quasi-open-source) tools used to build web applications that draw upon Oracle databases, notably Apache and PHP. Again, after introducing the relevant tools and platforms, they show you what's been done with them.

For example, there's Karma -- a powerful Oracle database monitoring application that helps you track multiple databases at once, and notifies you by email whenever there's a problem. There's OraSnap, a sophisticated, browser-based tool for performance monitoring and statistics gathering -- kind of like Oracle's utlbstat and utlestat on steroids. There's WWWWdb, which lets you quickly search for text inside database tables; Big Brother, a general network monitoring tool that includes Oracle-specific support; and more.

Java isn't quite open source, but it has gained extensive support from Oracle open source developers. The authors present key Java technologies for Oracle developers, including servlets, JavaServer Pages, and Apache JServ. Next, they introduce key Oracle open source tools built with Java, including the jDBA administration suite; and ViennaSQL, a nifty substitute for SQL*Plus built with the latest Java Swing components.

Perhaps the most exciting of these are DB Prism and Cocoon. On its own, DB Prism is a powerful servlet engine. When plugged into Cocoon, it can generate dynamic XML from an Oracle database. Together, the two packages act as a complete publishing framework, allowing organizations to manage content creation and delivery far more effectively.

The book concludes with a look at the GTK+ graphical toolkit, which is taking off as a platform for Oracle open source development. You'll learn about the GTK+-based Orasoft applications suite; the GNOME-DB framework for building GTK+ database applications; gaSQL, a highly visual tool for understanding the structure of your database; and more.

Whether you're an Oracle DBA or developer, this book will turn you on to tools you can use in production -- and extend at will -- without draining your checkbook.(Bill Camarda)

--Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer with nearly 20 years' experience in helping technology companies deploy and market advanced products and services. He served for nearly ten years as vice president of a New Jersey-based marketing company, where he supervised a wide range of graphics and web design projects. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Oracle & Open Source is the first book to tie together the commercial world of Oracle and the free-wheeling world of open source software. As this book reveals, these two worlds are not as far apart as they may seem. Today, there are many excellent and freely available software tools that Oracle developers and database administrators can use, at no cost, to improve their own coding productivity and their system's performance. Moreover, many of the finest Oracle developers are now making their source code freely available so their peers can build upon this code base. Oracle Corporation is even porting its RDBMS to Linux and starting to incorporate a growing number of open source tools in the company's own software.

Oracle & Open Source describes close to 100 open source tools you can use for Oracle development and database administration, from large and widely known open source systems (like Linux, Perl, Apache, TCL/Tk and Python) to more Oracle-specific tools (like Orasoft, Orac, OracleTool, and OraSnap). You'll learn how to obtain the software and how to adapt it to best advantage. The book abounds with code examples, download and installation instructions, and helpful usage hints.

Not only does it tell you how to find and use existing open source code; Oracle & Open Source gives you the details and the motivation to build your own open source contributions and release them to the Oracle community. You'll learn all about tools like the Oracle Call Interface (OCI) and Perl-DBI (Database Interface), which provide the glue allowing new open source tools to link into commercial Oracle software.

With Oracle & OpenSource as a guide, you'll discover an enormous number of highly effective open source tools, while getting involved with the thriving community of open source development.

SYNOPSIS

This is the first book to tie together the commercial world of Oracle and the free-wheeling world of open source software. It describes nearly 100 open source tools, from the widely applied (like Linux, Perl, and Apache) to the Oracle-specific (like Orasoft, Orac, OracleTool, and OraSnap). You'll learn where to find them, what their advantages are, and how to create and release new open source Oracle tools yourself.

AUTHOR DESCRIPTION

Andy Duncan is an inveterate software dabbler who lives in Oxfordshire, England. He is the author of the Orac open source tool for Oracle database administration and tuning. He started work at Oracle Corporation in 1998 as an Oracle DBA contractor at their EMEA Data Centre in the UK and remained there as a DBA through the January 2000 hurdle. Since then he has been working for Sun as a Java consultant, moving away from database administration into full-time code development.