Re: Dream tools poll

Brian,

I'm hoping management is baiting you. You are overworked, overwhelmed and are asking management for more staff. Management thinks they can send you off on a different direction. They dangle the prospect of unlimited tools in front of you to see if you will grab that bait instead. Don't weaken. Stand strong.

My experience is that managers often think that vendor tools save DBAs a lot of effort, so they can hire fewer DBAs. Or maybe hire dumber (cheaper) DBAs. The vendors feed that impression by providing impressive demonstrations featuring lots of graphics. The effect of graphics on the management mind is well documented. But my experience with a lot of these tools is that I seem to put a lot more effort in the tool than I get back. Here are some of the "hidden' costs:

• Time to select a tool - study the various tools available, features, etc.
• Time to purchase the tool. Justifications to management.
• Time to install the tool. Sometimes this is complex, with parts to install on my PC, agents to install on each server, etc.
• Time to learn how to use the tool.
• Licence issues. Can't buy enough licenses for all my databases. License renewal cycle. Keycode issues.
• Tool is unreliable (early versions of OEM anyone?)
• Tool dependency. The tool does something fancy and I don't know how to do that without the tool.
• Tool idiocy. The tool has a pattern of accomplishing tasks. But if I need to do a task that doesn't match the pattern, then I must rely on my own resources. Then there are other problems:
• The tool doesn't match the versions of all my databases, so I can only use it with certain databases.
• The tool lags database versions. I'm ready to get rolling on Oracle 10g, but my tool vendor hasn't released a new version yet.

Then the big one for me. It is an emergency and I don't have access to the PC with the fancy tool installed. Do I want to drive across town to get to that PC? Or what if my PC with all the fancy tools crashes and now I can't use those tools?

Now, having said that, I can think of a situation where tools are useful. If someone is a novice and no aspirations to become an expert, then sometimes the tool is useful. For example, the SQL Server DBA needs to be your backup but has no concept of operating an applicaiton that doesn't respond to mouse clicks. It might be easier to train that person on a GUI tool and leave it at well enough.

Okay, that is my cranky opinion. I'll be glad to listen if someone has had a better experience with a specific tool.

Dennis Williams

--
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l