ISBN 0-9744486-6-4 ISBN 13 978-0974448664 Library of Congress Number: 2005901259 288 Pages: Perfect Bind - 9x7 PD 405 Shelving: Databases/Oracle Oracle In-Focus Series # 13

Oracle Job Scheduling Creating Robust Task Management with dbms_job and Oracle 10g  dbms_scheduler Dr. Timothy S. Hall               Retail Price $16.95 /  £10.95 Order now and get immediate online access to the code depot! Only $9.95 (30% off)       Key Features About the Author Table of Contents Index Reader Comments Errata       Get the Oracle Tuning Half-Pack Three for only $79.95 Oracle Tuning: The Definitive Reference 2nd Edition $69.95 Oracle Silver Bullets $27.95 Oracle Replication $27.95

About the Author:
 

Dr. Timothy Hall

Dr. Tim Hall is an Oracle Certified Professional DBA (7.3, 8, 8i, 9i, 10g) and has been involved in DBA, design and development work with Oracle databases since graduating from college in 1994 with a PhD in Molecular Genetics. Tim Hall has gained a wide knowledge of the Oracle software stack and has worked as a consultant for several multi-national companies on projects ranging from real-time control systems to OLTP web applications. Since 2000 he has published over 200 articles on his website www.oracle-base.com covering a wide range of Oracle features. Tim has been a Karate black belt since 1993 and is a practitioner and qualified teacher of Hatha and Ashtanga yoga. In addition, he enjoys running and completed the 2002 London Marathon.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1 - External Oracle job scheduling Introduction External Oracle job scheduling Using cron and crontab in UNIX and Linux Using the Windows job schedulers AT.EXE Scheduled Tasks Wizard SCHTASKS.EXE Internal Oracle job Scheduling Oracle 9i Scheduler Overview Oracle 10g Scheduler Overview Features comparison between dbms_job and dbms_scheduler Migrating from dbms_job to dbms_scheduler Summary Chapter 2 - Configuring Oracle Job Scheduling Introduction Setting up a test environment Overview and examples of dbms_job functions Data dictionary views related to dbms_job dba_jobs dba_jobs_running Overview and examples of dbms_scheduler functions Scheduler Privileges Programs Schedules Jobs Job Classes Windows Window Groups Enabling, disabling and setting attributes of scheduler objects Data dictionary views related to dbms_scheduler Summary Chapter 3 - Time-Based Job Scheduling Introduction Dates Timestamps Intervals and Interval Literals Calendar Syntax in Oracle 10g Complex Date Rules for Job Execution Summary

Chapter 4 - Chaining Oracle Jobs Together Introduction Creating a job chain Conditional job creation Conditional job enabling Conditional job runs using Oracle Advanced Queuing Conditional job runs using a custom table solution Implementing error checking routines Implementing conditional job execution Sending email notifications of job errors Using UTL_SMTP Using UTL_MAIL in Oracle 10g Running OS commands and scripts from PL/SQL Summary Chapter 5 - Monitoring Oracle Job Execution Introduction Monitoring Jobs (pre 10g) Monitoring Jobs in 10g Monitoring Sessions Killing Oracle Sessions DBMS_APPLICATION_INFO DBMS_SYSTEM Summary Chapter 6 - Advanced Scheduling Topics Introduction Setting Scheduler Attributes current_open_window default_timezone log_history max_job_slave_processes Job Priorities Scheduler Logging Job Logs Job Run Details Window Logs Purging Logs Resource Manager Export/Import and the Scheduler Services and Instance Stickiness Security Setting Scheduler Object Attributes Summary

Reviews:
Author references:

• Job Coordination Using DBMS_JOB and DBMS_PIPE -- Slides
• "Leveraging Oracle's in-built Job Scheduler" - Examples of complex time-based schedules
• New Scheduler Utilities - Mike Ault's Oracle 10g New Features book

Editor Review:

As the editor for this book, I was honored to be able to observe and recommend important areas for this definitive book on Oracle Job Scheduling.

Oracle job scheduling is critical to any Oracle shop and the DBA must be able to create complete DBA job streams for backups, redo log archiving and other database activities that require interfacing with the external environment.

Dr. Hall notes that with Oracle10g there is no need to use UNIX/Linux crontab files any longer, and he also notes some of the important shortcoming of scheduling Oracle jobs in Linux, like the fact that dbms_scheduler will re-start a missed job (when the database has been down) while a crontab will not.

Oracle job scheduling has always been super-complex, as we see within Oracle’s own applications products where a “concurrent manager” is used to interface with the dbms_job utility to schedule complex job streams.  It’s even more confounding when vendor applications (such as the ever-popular SAP) dispatch their own tasks independently from Oracle.

Dr. Hall has an excellent section on setting-up an Oracle scheduling environment and he show the sophisticated features of Oracle scheduling including establishing job classes and granting scheduler privileges.

But this handy book goes far beyond the basics, and Hall shared his real-world experience in chapters dedicated to time-based job scheduling (i.e. run this job every second Wednesday at 3:00 PM) and he shows working example that will save the reader many hours of manual computations.

The real meat of “Oracle Job Scheduling” is where Dr. Hall explains the process of chaining jobs together with dbms_job and dbms_scheduler.  Hall covers the most complicated aspects of Oracle job chaining including the conditional execution of Oracle tasks, and working examples that show how to create a robust jobstream with built-in error checking.  He also includes details for job failure notification and shows how to alert the staff using the utl_smtp protocol package.

But Hall does not stop there.  He goes far beyond the Oracle documentation and shows working examples of using the new Oracle job monitoring features and the reader can see exactly how to use the Oracle job monitoring functions to monitor and kill scheduled Oracle tasks.

Halls opens-up his personal experience in chapter 6, advanced scheduling Topics, and show never-before seen techniques for setting scheduler object attributes and the concept of “Instance Stickiness”.

Dr. Hall has a long history of explain complex Oracle concepts with clear, easy-to-understand examples, and this book is no exception.  Hall is provided an online code depot, replete with working examples of complex job streams, an invaluable time-saver for the Oracle professional.

I also like the price, as I’m getting weary of shelling-out $50 for mediocre Oracle books and it’s refreshing to see that Rampant van offer a high-quality 288-page Oracle book for only $9.95

My copy of Oracle Job Scheduling is already filling-up with dog-eared pages and post-it notes, a sure sign that other Oracle professionals are going to find this book to be an addition to their Oracle libraries that they will actually use everyday.

Index Topics:

Errata: