Oracle-L: RE: Guidelines/Standards for supporting non-oracle databases

From: DENNIS WILLIAMS <DWILLIAMS_at_LIFETOUCH.COM>
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 07:04:22 -0800
Message-ID: <F001.005177EC.20021211070422@fatcity.com>

Rick - Since you didn't say how these Access databases are populated, I will assume that they may be stand-alone, i.e. not necessarily associated with your Oracle/SQL Server databases.

My immediate reaction is that this is a "political" type of question. That is, somebody thinks this would be potentially useful. Usually IS management is astute enough to ward off these ideas, realizing that their valuable (expensive) IS talent would be frittered away on less important projects. But sometimes you get a new IS manager that thinks this would be a cool way to make his group seem more valuable to the business groups. Here are some ideas:

To your IS management, offer your willingness to be as helpful as possible. Ask for training in Access. Ask for a breakdown of the ratio of your time you should spend on these databases versus Access.
Suggest that the PC techs should cover this area, but offer to be a second-level resource to them (with training, of course).
Offer to put on a class in database design. Usually the problems encountered with Access databases occur because of ignorance.
Suggest the power users be sent to Access class. Like most organizations, our policy toward Access is the same as Excel, Word, etc. Our PC techs will install it, but past that the users are on their own. As an Oracle DBA, I know nothing about Access, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Dennis Williams DBA, 40%OCP Lifetouch, Inc. dwilliams_at_lifetouch.com

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2002 3:15 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

Hi,

We are virtually an Oracle shop with 2-3 sql server databases due to 3rd-party software restrictions.
We have been asked about supporting other "small" databases such as Access,etc within our company. My question is if you were asked to support "smaller" databases what restrictions/guidelines/standards are worth considering? Be kind-constructive answers only :-)

Thanks
Rick

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Author:
INET: Rick_Cale_at_teamhealth.com

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Author: DENNIS WILLIAMS
INET: DWILLIAMS_at_LIFETOUCH.COM

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