RE: OT: Reading the Oracle Tea Leaves

 David,

Your work environment sounds interesting. How would you feel about answering some questions about it....like...how many DBAs and SAs support the 70-odd databases?....how many physical boxes are they on?...what are som "higher" tasks, to your mind?....what tip/tricks do you have for running so many databases smoothly?....what do you guys use for a monitoring/alerting system?

whew! more than I thought....we track about 25 or so databases and i thought your insights on this front might be valuable.

TIA Ross Mohan

-----Original Message-----
From: Lord David
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Sent: 4/27/2001 4:55 AM
Subject: RE: OT: Reading the Oracle Tea Leaves

Well, we run lots (70 odd) of smallish (4-16Gb) databases that usually don't
need a lot of tuning.  Hence, if we do have to tune something, its a real
pain because we don't have the experience of doing it every day.  So, as far
as I'm concerned, roll on autotuning.  There's plenty to keep us occupied at
'higher' levels.

However, on the 'career' front, I'd like to learn more, so could anybody recommend a good book on tuning?

TIA
David Lord

-----Original Message-----
Sent: 26 April 2001 23:16
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

I didn't assert that DBA's will become expendable, nor did I state a timeframe for when autotuning will become a usable option.  I doubt autotuning will ever be perfect, but any DBA who thinks he is, has a vainglorious opinion if himself.  

I believe in the fullness of time, between 5 and 10 years, autotuning will
be good enough for at least 80% of the Oracle databases.  We tune based on
our expericences and on the experiences of others.  Many of  these experiences could be codified as rules.  We also fine tune our "rules" or
derive new ones as new situations arise.  I doubt autotuning will be doing
the five or ten year period.

If you think autotuning is a death knell, keep in mind here is more to being
a DBA than changing init.ora parameters and that the skillset required will
change over time. 

Ian MacGregor
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
ian_at_slac.stanford.edu

OCP Oracle8 DBA
iNetProfit, Inc.
Austin, Texas
www.iNetProfit.com
japplewhite_at_inetprofit.com
(512)327-9068

>>> ian_at_SLAC.Stanford.EDU 04/25/01 06:36PM >>>
I foresee the database being sold as a turn key product configured by Oracle
at a reduced price.   In order to receive the discount the purchaser would
have to agree not to mess with the init<SID>.ora parameters, nor take any
action which would enable or disable any database options.  "What?!, not change init.ora parameters", you scoff.  Remember that Oracle 9i has some
autotuning capability.  I expect, at first, autotuning will not work as advertised, but over time will mature into a powerful product.

Ian MacGregor

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Author: Lord David
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