Pleasantly surprised; I was looking forward to this book and had very high expectations based of who was writing it. The author does a great job of covering Oracle GoldenGate (GG). The book is a quick and easy read that progresses forward in a step by step manner. This book is much better organized than the actual GG documentation. One minor thing I would of like is an image of where everything is in a recommended One-To-One "typical" replication. There was a table for "Configuration summary" but a visual of all the moving parts, the related files, and how to control/edit each file would have brought everything together visually. I see/read in pictures so this may not matter for other people.
Overall highly recommend this book. It's an easy read over a weekend. Chapter 3 and 6 show the experience of the author and the early chapters establishes the right amount of foundation without drowning a person.
Here is a one sentence break down on my impression per chapter:
Ch 1 "Getting Started" presents some history of GG and the basic architecture
Ch 2 "Installing and Preparing GoldenGate" get it, install it, and understand what you installed
Ch 3 "Design Considerations" this chapter is worth the price of the book alone and John provides his experience in written form.
Ch 4 "Configuring Oracle GoldenGate" here is where you get your hands dirty and get this really working
Ch 5 "Configuration Options" going beyond the basics
Ch 6 "Configuring GoldenGate for HA" is covers GG and RAC which is great.
Ch 7 "Advanced Configuration" good to know what you can do with the right tool
Ch 8 "Managing Oracle GoldenGate" ok got it running now keep it running and determine how well it is running
Ch 9 "Performance Tuning" make it run faster . . . what else would it be?
Ch 10 "Troubleshooting GoldenGate" nothing ever runs perfect all the time how to fix it.