As a production DBA this is the best book so far since Velpuri wrote the original Oracle 8i backup and recovery book a decade ago. I like this a lot and together with the Oracle documentation, setting up and using RMAN is a snap compared to the pain it used to be to stumble with RMAN before. Throw away logical backups and hassle of SQL backups and use the power of RMAN. I was able to get cooking in a few hours with a good RMAN setup for our test and production database environments. Together with the Oracle 10g RAC book you have the complete knowledge to be a true HA Oracle DBA.

I read this book when I was working on my OCP 9i track in 2004. At that time I needed more information about Backup and Recovery and especially Recovery Manager (RMAN)and I ended up borrowing this book from the library. I then put my exam study guide aside and finish this book. The book is really good. The part that I like the most is the book gives you scenarios that are easy to understand and it shows RMAN in different environment interacting with other storage media. I will definitely recommend this book. A book like this one does not come along very often. I am planning to buy my own copy soon. Great Job RG I give 4 stars.

RMAN is proof positive that Oracle corporation doesn't give a rat's ass about making their products easier to manage. RMAN thing is hard to love and even harder to learn. No wonder most Oracle DBA are not proficient with RMAN, at least not enough to troubleshoot it when the basic "backup database" and "restore database" statements go awry. The stinker is that RMAN isn't that much more sophisticated than SQL Backups. For example, the online tablespace restore is not really a feature, but really a bug. It is so convoluted it is a miracle when someone can pull it off. One advantage RMAN has is its ability to restore OFFLINE tablespaces while the rest of the database is online. But SQL backup/restore is about 10x easier.

This book, unfortunately, is a must for the Oracle DBAs. Do not believe you know RMAN unless you read this book. Actually, do not believe you know RMAN unless you RMAD.

There are 12 disaster case scenarios and their solutions in the book, which are quite helpful. Plus, there are around 12 workouts which explains the basic intricacies of RMAND commands.

Both authors apparently have considerable experience in oracle and rman. The book appears to have been put together very quickly perhaps too quickly. Much of the serious work done with oracle is done on unix platforms but almost all of the examples shown are done on windows.

The rman in the workplace chapter is perhaps one of the most contrived. While the authors probably have real workplace experience the case studies do not seem to demonstrate more than "possible scenarios".

There are not a lot of rman books out there so this book may be useful to many people but it seems like this is a very unfinished piece of work to me. It does provide a different set of words than the oracle manuals.

I have used this book over and over again. The examples in the book are straight forward and easy to follow.