Acknowledgments

The authors owe thanks to the great publishing team at Apress for helping them throughout the writing process. Jonathan Gennick, senior acquisitions editor, helped significantly in outlining the topics (recipes) for this book, and helped us produce the best book we possibly could, by nudging us along with incisive comments/suggestions/criticisms, all of which have tremendously increased both the presentation style of the book as well as the quality of the contents. Jonathan is that rare editor who is not only technically proficient, but also a consummate editor of books, in the traditional sense of the term. Thank you, Jonathan, for your patience and hard work throughout this project! All three of us are beneficiaries of your sagacious advice and continual encouragement over the past few months.

The authors would like to thank the tremendous work done by the technical editor of the book, Surachart Opun, senior analyst at True Internet, who somehow found time from his prolific blogging and other work to perform a marvelous review of our draft chapters. Surachart not only caught several mistakes in code and elsewhere, but also made numerous suggestions to improve the presentation of the various recipes. Thank you, Surachart, for all your painstaking and cheerful work in helping us out with the book. Anita Castro, coordinating editor, has superbly guided us throughout this project, and helped keep things on schedule. Managing a three-author project isn't a piece of cake by any means, but Anita sure makes it seem that way! Mary Ann Fugate copyedited the chapters with great skill, and we appreciate her contributions toward improving the quality of this book.

Personal Acknowledgments

First of all, my heartfelt thanks to the great help and cooperation from my two co-writers—Darl Kuhn and Bill Padfield—it sure was great working with you, Darl and Bill—I've enjoyed every minute of it! I'd like to acknowledge the support and encouragement of my company, Miro Consulting Inc., Woodbridge, New Jersey, whose CEO, Scott Rosenberg, is not only a great leader but also an enthusiastic promoter of Oracle technology with our many clients across the United States. Miro's president, Eliot Colon, its vice president of technical services, Wayne Federico, and its vice president, Bob Kinkade, have always been supportive of my work at Miro, and I've learned a lot from working with each of them.

I'd like to express the generosity and help offered by my friends Kishore Rachamalla, Praveen Katapally, and Sreeny Chinta during my tenure at ERCOT in Taylor, Texas, where I started initial work on this and another book. I'm grateful for the kindness and show of support by Sam Nataros, whose gift from the heart I'll always cherish—thank you, Sam, your gesture inspires me every single day!

My family, of course, has sacrificed the most in making this book possible, and thus I'm grateful to Valerie, Shannon, Nicholas, and Nina for their help and support over the past few years while I was working on this and another book. Last but not least, I'd like to acknowledge my debt to my other family—my mother, Swarna Kumari, my father, Appa Rao, and my brothers, Hari Hara Prasad and Siva Sankara Prasad, Aruna, Vanaja, Ashwin, Teja, Aparna, and Soumya, for their abiding love and faith in me.

Sam Alapati

Thanks to fellow co-authors Sam Alapati and Bill Padfield, and also thanks to the numerous DBAs and developers from whom I've learned performance tuning techniques over the years: Dave Jennings, Bob Suehrstedt, Scott Schulze, Pete Mullineaux, Janet Bacon, Sue Wagner, Mohan Koneru, Arup Nanda, Charles Kim, Bernard Lopuz, Barb Sannwald, Tim Gorman, Shawn Heisdorffer, Doug Davis, Sujit Pattanaik, Ken Roberts, Roger Murphy, Mehran Sowdaey, Kevin Bayer, Dan Fink, Guido Handley, Margaret Carson, Nehru Kaja, Tim Colbert, Glenn Balanoff, Bob Mason, Shari Plantz-Masters, Mike Nims, Denise Duncan, Brad Blake, Ravi Narayanaswamy, Abid Malik, Abdul Ebadi, Kevin Hoyt, Trent Sherman, Sandra Montijo, Jim Secor, Maureen Frazzini, Sean Best, Stephan Haisley, Geoff Strebel, Patrick Gates, Krish Hariharan, Buzzy Cheadle, Mark Blair, Gary Dodge, Karen Kappler, Mike Hutchinson, Liz Brill, Ennio Murroni, Mike O'Neill, Beth Loker, Mike Eason, Greg Roberts, Debbie Earman, Tom Wheltle, Ken Toney, Gabor Gyurovszky, Scott Norris, Joey Canlas, Eric Wendelin, Gary Smith, Mark Lutze, Kevin Quinlivan, Dave Bourque, Roy Backstrom, Larry Carpenter, Joe Meeks, Ashish Ray, John Lilly, Dave Wood, Laurie Bourgeois, Steve Buckmelter, Casey Costley, John DiVirgilio, John Goggin, Brett Guy, Simon Ip, Pascal Ledru, Kevin O'Grady, Peter Schow, Todd Sherman, Jeff Shoup, Mike Tanaka, Todd Wichers, Doug Cushing, Will Thornburg, Steve Roughton, Ambereen Pasha, Dinesh Neelay, Kye Bae, Thom Chumley, Jeff Sherard, Dona Smith, Erik Jasiak, Gary Schut, Don Gritzmacher, Aaron Isom, Kristi Jackson, Karolyn Vowles, Amin Jiwani, Paula Still, K. P. Muthe, Joe Pinkerton, Arvin Kuhn, Darin Christensen, Terry Roam, Doug Drake, Marilyn Wenzel, Doc Heppler, Mert Lovell, Carl Beasly, Brian Beasly, Odean Bowler, and Jim Stark.

Darl Kuhn

I'd like to thank my gracious co-authors, Sam Alapati and Darl Kuhn, for all of their help and support, and for taking on a rookie for this project. I couldn't have made it without their help.

There are so many people I can thank that have helped me over the years in my career, so please know that I appreciate every single individual who has encouraged and helped me along. First of all, I'd like to thank Bob Ranney for giving me the opportunity to be a DBA. I also would like to thank some of my key managers over the years that have helped me, including Beth Bowen, Larry Wyzgala, John Zlamal, Linda Scheldrup, Amy Neff, and Maureen Frazzini.

Of course, there are many DBAs, developers, system administrators, and architects that have helped me greatly in my career. First, I need to thank the DBAs on my current team who make the everyday grind a blast. These folks have helped me so much professionally and have become great friends over the many years we have worked together. This includes Dave Carter, Debbie Fitzgerald, Pankaj Guleria, Pete Sardaczuk, Brad Strom, and Rebecca Western.

Over the years, I've learned an awful lot from the following folks, who have always been generous with their time and help, and patient with my questions. This includes Mark Nold, Mick McMahon, Sandra Montijo, Jerry Sanderson, Glen Sanderson, Jose Fernandez, Mike Hammontre, Pat Cain, Dave Steep, Gary Whiting, Ron Fullmer, Becky Enter, John Weber, Avanish Gupta, Scott Bunker, Paul Mayes, Bill Read, Rod Ermish, Rick Barry, Sun Yang, Sue Wagner, Glenn Balanoff, Linda Lee Burau, Deborah Lieou-McCall, Bob Zumpf, Kristi Sargent, Sandy Hass, George Huner, Pad Kail, Curtis Gay, Ross Bartholomay, Carol Rosenow, Scott Richards, Sheryl Gross, Lachelle Shambe, John Piel, Rob Grote, Rex Ellis, Zane Warton, Steve Pearson, Jim Barclay, Jason Hermstad, Shari Plantz-Masters, Denise Duncan, Bob Mason, Brad Blake, Mike Nims, Cathie Wilson, Rob Coates, Shirley Amend, Rob Bushlack, Cindy Patterson, Debbie Chartier, Blair Christensen, Meera Ganesan, and Kedar Panda.

Bill Padfield