What makes an Oracle DataBase tick ?

As the company I work for, is thinking about being more DBA-aware, I would very much like to know more about the inner-workings of an Oracle DataBase.

I'm particularly interested in learning about

• Why some DB's perform well, while others don't
  • What causes this
• How does the optimizer work
• Strengths & Weaknesses and how to exploit & overcome them
• Any other information that will enable me to pose intelligent questions to our suppliers, who design our physical DB's
• What-ever you think might be usefull for a person interested the performance & design aspects of Oracle DataBases...

Where can I find this kind of information ???

Information about ;

• Books, articles, FAQ's, White Paper's, Web-Sites etc.

is extremely welcome !!!

TIA - Christian

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