Essential Oracle 18c SQL training course

Synopsis for Oracle 18c Essential SQL training course

We love SQL, Structured Query Language; it’s been the mainstay for our work with Databases for over twenty years, our Consultants have used SQL with IBM's Application System, then they moved onto to Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server Databases.

What can you do with SQL ? Fundamentally it’s the main command language between the Developer, User or Database Administrator and the Database itself, it can be used to create the Database, maintain it, create objects within it, populate tables and perhaps most importantly extract data from the Database. Why most importantly 'extract data from the Database'? Well we're Data specialists; we design and build database structures for major Companies and Enterprises throughout the UK and Ireland, our philosophy is that a Database without good data is merely a collection of expensive software packages, it is the data that makes the Database what it is; a repository of information which allows Businesses to extract the data quickly and accurately in order to make decisions regarding the running of the Company.

The Essential Oracle SQL course is a two day event which can be given onsite at your venue or throughout the UK and Ireland at various points in the year and at conveniently placed Conference centres, when it is a public course we provide lunch and as much coffee and tea you need.

This course assumes no knowledge of SQL whatsoever, our training Consultant will start right from the beginning with a discussion of what a Database really is, delegates are encouraged to ask questions throughout the course to both improve their knowledge but also to help the Trainer understand what the Delegate needs from the course. The first day of the course concentrates on the SQL 'select' statement, starting off with the rudimentary selection from the Oracle Database, its strict syntax and discussing what makes good, clean and readable code. How to find tables in the Database and their structure is one of the first items on the 'agenda'. Once the delegates are comfortable with the logging on and basic queries, the course will move onto using Functions on the selected columns, sorting data as well as applying where clauses to 'sieve' the data being returned, after all, we don’t want the delegates creating the 'sql from hell' when they return to their live Databases.

Each day of the course consists of the Consultant presenting the new topic, discussing and demonstrating the techniques and then switching the Users back to their workstations for them to practice what 'we have preached', throughout this and in fact every course we give, there are ample exercises throughout the day for practice, smokers can take advantage of this time and disappear for a vape or a cigarette at this time and everyone else can unwind with a cuppa and a relax. On our public courses we start each day at 9am, there will be breaks during the day with a scheduled lunch at about 12.15pm, all things being equal the course should be completed each day at 4.15pm, however the Consultants will not stick rigidly to the timings, if Delegates need more time they will get it, if they are naturals at SQL maybe the course will finish earlier or maybe the Consultant will add a few elements to the course-work to give them more work to do.

Our onsite courses can be a little different, it can be run as above but the advantage you have when you book an onsite course is that not only can you choose the start date but also the start and end times, this gives you fantastic flexibility so that your Colleagues can fit their working and personal life around the timings, if they have to drop their kids at school we'll start later, if they need to attend a meeting we'll stop and start up again when they return, if our Consultants have to work until 6pm so be it.

The second day of the course introduces more advanced techniques, using more complex functions such as first_value etc then we move onto creating and populating tables and other user defined Database objects such as Views, we also discuss good indexing strategies and the syntax for creating them, the final exercise returns to the select statements which the Delegates will apply to their newly created database objects. This course uses the SQLPlus software to learn the SQL techniques and language, we also put on the SQL Developer course which is similar to this in content but uses this GUI software to learn SQL.

We regard the SQL course(s) as the building blocks to learning how to use the Oracle database, where you go from here is up to you, if you are going to develop the Database the PLSQL course should be your next step, this is for Programmers and DBAs alike, if you need to create front end products then these too will require PLSQL followed by Oracle Forms.

If you are just an occasional User of the Database and merely need to extract information for your work then perhaps this is where you start and finish when it comes to learning Oracle. Maybe you need advice, contact us using the contact form or directly by phone or email, our training advisors will be glad to help you working out your career path with Oracle.