Oracle7 Server Administrator's Guide

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Initial Priorities of a Database Administrator

In general, you must perform a series of steps to get the database system up and running, and then maintain it.

The following steps are required to configure an Oracle7 Server and database on any type of computer system. The following sections include details about each step.

To Configure an Oracle7 Server

Note: If migrating to a new release, back up your existing production database before installation. For more information on preserving your existing production database, see Chapter 1 of the Oracle7 Server Migration.

Step 1: Install the Oracle7 Software

As the database administrator, you must install the Oracle7 Server software and any front-end tools and database applications that access the database. In some distributed processing installations, the database is controlled by a central computer and the database tools and applications are executed on remote machines; in this case, you must also install the Oracle7 SQL*Net drivers necessary to connect the remote machines to the computer that executes Oracle7.

See Also: "Identifying Oracle Software Releases" [*].

For specific requirements and instructions for installation, see your operating system-specific Oracle documentation and your installation guides for your front-end tools and SQL*Net drivers.

Step 2: Evaluate the Database Server Hardware

After installation, evaluate how Oracle7 and its applications can best use the available computer resources. This evaluation should reveal the following information:

Step 3: Plan the Database

As the database administrator, you must plan:

It is important to plan how the logical storage structure of the database will affect system performance and various database management operations. For example, before creating any tablespaces for your database, you should know how many data files will make up the tablespace, where the data files will be physically stored (on which disk drives), and what type of information will be stored in each tablespace. When planning the database's overall logical storage structure, take into account the effects that this structure will have when the database is actually created and running. Such considerations include how the database's logical storage structure will affect the following items:

Plan the relational design of the database's objects and the storage characteristics for each of these objects. By planning relationships between objects and the physical storage of each object before creating it, you can directly impact the performance of the database as a unit. Be sure to plan for the growth of the database.

In distributed database environments, this planning stage is extremely important. The physical location of highly accessed data can dramatically affect application performance.

During the above planning phases, also plan a backup strategy for the database. After developing this strategy, you might find that you want to alter the database's planned logical storage structure or database design to improve backup efficiency.

It is beyond the scope of this book to discuss relational and distributed database design; if you are not familiar with such design issues, refer to accepted industry-standard books that explain these studies. See Chapters 9 through 17 for specific information on creating logical storage structures, objects, and integrity constraints for your database.

Step 4: Create and Open the Database

Once you have finalized the database design, you can create the database and open it for normal use. Depending on your operating system, a database may already have been created during the installation procedure for Oracle7. If so, all you need to do is start an instance, and mount and open the initial database.

To determine if your operating system creates an initial database during the installation of Oracle7, check your installation or user's guide. If no database is created during installation or you want to create an additional database, see Chapter 2 for this procedure. See Chapter 3 for database and instance startup and shutdown procedures.

Step 5: Implement the Database Design

Once you have created and started the database, you can create the database's planned logical structure by creating all necessary rollback segments and tablespaces. Once this is built, you can create the objects for your database.

See Chapters 8 through 17 for instructions on creating logical storage structures and objects for your database.

Step 6: Back up the Database

After you have created the database structure, carry out the planned backup strategy for your database by creating any additional redo log files, taking the first full database backup (online or offline), and scheduling future database backups at regular intervals.

See Chapters 22 through 24 for instructions on customizing your backup operations and performing recovery procedures.

Step 7: Enroll System Users

Once you have backed up the database structure, you can begin to enroll the users of the database in accordance with your Oracle7 license agreement, create roles for these users, and grant appropriate roles to them.

See Chapters 18 through 20 for the procedures to create user accounts and roles, and information on complying with your license agreement.

Step 8: Tune Database Performance

Optimizing the database system's performance is one of your ongoing responsibilities.

See Also: "Initial Tuning Guidelines" [*] describes steps you can take to start tuning your database immediately after creation.

Oracle7 Server Tuning manual, for information about tuning your database and applications.

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