Preface

The focus of this section is to identify how to improve management of the ORACLE/NT environment by taking advantage of available utilities and techniques. Automation of redundant tasks is one of the key considerations. A DBA's time (and the organization's dollars) should not be expended on repeated manual execution of repetitive tasks. Those tasks that can be automated should be automated, thus freeing DBA resources to perform functions that have much greater value to the organization (such as performance tuning, recovery testing, or logical/physical database design). Many of the utilities to make automation easier are either already included with Windows NT (or the NT Resource Kit), or are available for download over the internet as freeware or shareware.

Windows NT presents some unique challenges in remotely administering operational jobs, as well as administration of the ORACLE instances. Many administration tasks by default require a physical visit to the console of the database server. There are a variety of commercial enterprise management tools available on the market, ranging from simpler graphical remote console servers, resembling UNIX X-windows applications, to alledgedly all-inclusive total enterprise management solutions. An organization must realize that these tools, particularly the more complicated and all-inclusive varieties, can introduce new sources of on-going expense above and beyond purchase cost. It is not an unheard of circumstance for administration of the administration tools to be more difficult and costly than the original administration of the database and operating system. Finally, technical talent to administer, configure, and operate these tools is sparse, and can be very difficult to secure and retain.

The articles in this section are so inter-related that it is very difficult to segregate them. However, the attempt is made to present the information in a manner that identifies how to use a particular utility, and how it is useful in the larger scheme of necessary tasks. Since remote command line utilities are easy to find and implement, are inexpensive or free, can normally be scripted, and have low bandwidth requirements, the following articles will focus primarily on command line methods for performing various tasks under NT, although some GUI utilities will be mentioned. Not all utilities will be covered; the focus is on the tools that, in the author's opinion, provide the most "bang for the buck", so to speak.