Rachel,
you are actually proving my point - that a company does not have the luxury
(or common sense) to have more than one DBA on staff.
Robert's utopia just doesn't fly in todays world. hire one person and
work-em till they drop is the current motto.
Tom Mercadante
Oracle Certified Professional
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Monday, July 22, 2002 3:24 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>The only problem with your idea that I see is that a typical
>organization
>will only keep one (or so) DBA on staff per project - they rarely have
excuse me while I wipe the Diet Coke off the screen that I spit out
when I read this. One DBA per project? Oh God that would be a luxury
beyond belief.
As I type this I am the DBA for:
a new data mart/data warehouse project
a new content management system project
a new ecommerce project
the existing "universal login" project AND the replacement project
the existing asset management application
the existing "community" site (bulletin boards)
and anything else that needs a DBA ... and I am it, ain't no other DBAs
around ......
oh yeah, I'm the data architect and data modeler on half these as
well... which is REALLY funny as I have almost zero data modeling
experience, other than "common sense"
- "Mercadante, Thomas F" <NDATFM_at_labor.state.ny.us> wrote:
> OMG! A Socialist in the group!
>
> "I believe that if we think about these things in a way that we ask
> ourselves how can I maximize the potential of this person in our
> organization, pay him/her a fair wage for what they can do, and free
> up my
> time to address the really gnarly stuff we can help our entire
> society
> better transition to the information era and not marginalize a bunch
> of
> great people in the process."
>
> The only problem with your idea that I see is that a typical
> organization
> will only keep one (or so) DBA on staff per project - they rarely
> have the
> cash for multiple people. So a DBA ends up getting called upon do
> cross the
> boundary between very technical stuff as part of the SA group and
> data
> access/design with the applications group. Lots of room in between
> here for
> talented people.
>
> Tom Mercadante
> Oracle Certified Professional
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: Monday, July 22, 2002 1:23 PM
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
>
> I have been reading this list for the past several months as I
> prepare to
> move my universe of databases from 7.3 to 9 (probably 9) and I have a
> rant
> of my own.
>
> It seems that the implicit expectation is that every DBA should be or
>
> should aspire to be a Master Technical DBA.
> I have a slightly different take on the situation. It is a little
> convoluted but I believe that the DBA world needs some additional job
>
> classifications. In a decent sized organization, the day to day
> management
> functions should be accomplished by an Admin DBA who might be someone
> who
> was perfectly happy spending his/her working career operating a
> precision
> milling machine at Boeing. Since the machinist jobs are going away, I
> see
> no reason why a competent machinist could not become a competent
> admin DBA.
> Such a person is not suited by aptitude or disposition to become a
> Master
> Technical DBA, but would do a great job at the admin level.
>
> I'll extend the analogy a little more: the manufacturing organization
> does
> not expect the machinist to program the machine. They either have on
> staff
> or bring in a numerical control programming specialist. Similarly,
> the
> Admin DBA should know which tasks he/she can perform and which tasks
> should
> be kicked up or out to the next level.
>
> So maybe some of the energy spent on this list about relevance of the
> OCP
> and discussing qualifications of DBAs (against an unspecified
> standard)
> could be spent defining organizational strategies for getting the
> best use
> out of human capital represented by "Admin DBAs" and pricing the
> skill set
> appropriately. The worst possible thing is to get an Admin DBA into a
>
> Technical DBA position.
>
> I think the key breakthrough is the notion that there is a DBA track
> that
> does not inevitably lead to Master Technical DBA. That is why I use
> the
> machinist analogy: somebody who is satisfied with a career spending
> 25
> years doing essentially the same thing. If you are into Myers-Briggs
> type
> indicator, I think the personality dimension is SJ and roughly 25% of
> the
> population fits this profile.
>
> I believe that if we think about these things in a way that we ask
> ourselves how can I maximize the potential of this person in our
> organization, pay him/her a fair wage for what they can do, and free
> up my
> time to address the really gnarly stuff we can help our entire
> society
> better transition to the information era and not marginalize a bunch
> of
> great people in the process. (Sez the man operating a three person
> software company).
>
> Re: Hotbackups.
> In the last three months I have adapted the scripts from the Kevin
> Loney
> book for 4 separate databases.
> I have inspected them very carefully to make sure all of the files
> are the
> there.
> I think that I understand the what, how and why of hot backups.
> And I still had to go look to see that it was an alter tablespace
> rather
> than an alter database command to backup the tablespace.
>
> re Politics:
> Given the rather idealistic tone of this missive, I guess I should
> add that
> I am down the middle Libertarian who tends to vote Republican because
> I'm
> most concerned about taxes.
>
> At 06:58 AM 7/22/2002 -0800, you wrote:
> >Ok, I need to vent a little.
> >
> >Last week, I was asked to do some tech interviews over
> >the phones for a mid level DBA position. Someone with
> >about 2-3 years experience.
> >
> >I don't consider myself a real smart DBA, nor do I
> >think that I ask particularly tough questions. The
> >questions that I ask potential candidates are soley
> >based on what is on the resume. So I figure if
> >someone has, say, hot backups or SQL tuning on their
> >resumes, I'd expect them to be able to hold a fairly
> >intelligent conversation about these topics. No such
> >luck!
>
> --
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
> --
> Author: Robert Monical
> INET: tech_at_restek.com
>
> Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051
> San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing
> Lists
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
> to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
> the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
> (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may
> also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
> --
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
> --
> Author: Mercadante, Thomas F
> INET: NDATFM_at_labor.state.ny.us
>
> Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051
> San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing
> Lists
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
> to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
> the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
> (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may
> also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better
http://health.yahoo.com
--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
--
Author: Rachel Carmichael
INET: wisernet100_at_yahoo.com
Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists
--------------------------------------------------------------------
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
--
Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
--
Author: Mercadante, Thomas F
INET: NDATFM_at_labor.state.ny.us
Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists
--------------------------------------------------------------------
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message
to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in
the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L
(or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may
also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).
Received on Mon Jul 22 2002 - 15:10:27 CDT
