Re: Non Oracle knowledge to be a good Oracle DBA/expert

Orlando,

The more that you know about the different pieces of technology, the more valuable you will become. Learning some C would be good, especially pointer concepts since Oracle is written in C, but I would first ask your developers what they use to develop applications that connect to Oracle. If they use Java, then I would recommend learning a little Java so you can use terms that are familiar to them. Then you should also learn something about the operating system your Oracle database resides on. If it is Unix, then you may also want to learn some shell scripting.

Dennis Williams

On 4/9/07, Kerber, Andrew W. <Andrew.Kerber_at_umb.com> wrote:
>
> I'll second what was said here, especially about the Java. I came up in
> database programming, I never really became more than familiar with C,
> but I can still get along with C programs just fine. A DBA doesn't
> really have to be a programmer, but he needs to be able to follow what a
> program is doing. In my experience, DBA's generally come up in either
> programming or systems, I would be very leery of hiring someone fresh
> out of college as a DBA.
>
> I really need to take a java course also, but finding the time is always
> the problem.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
> [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Bobak, Mark
> Sent: Monday, April 09, 2007 8:00 AM
> To: oralrnr_at_gmail.com; oracle-l_at_freelists.org
> Subject: RE: Non Oracle knowledge to be a good Oracle DBA/expert
>
> Hi Orlando,
>
> First, I don't think I'm a "Guru", but I'll give this a shot.
>
> This is a difficult question to answer, because noone can know
> everything, and picking and choosing specific topics is really
> impossible.
>
> In general, I think a DBA who "came up through the ranks", so to speak,
> starting out as a developer, has an advantage over someone who came out
> of school and went straight to DBA work. (But I'm probably biased on
> that point, cause that's how I did it.)
>
> I think you need a strong understanding of the O/S your database runs
> on. Oracle relies on the O/S to interface with the hardware, so,
> understanding how it works, particularly under stress, can be important.
> For example, if you're involved in a performance tuning problem, and you
> have a database server that also services non-database load, the first
> thing you have to determine is, is the bottleneck inside or outside of
> Oracle? Without at least some knowledge of the O/S and how to monitor
> it, what to look for, this is going to be difficult to answer.
>
> As far as languages go, well, I was a C programmer before I was a DBA.
> Does it help? Sure. Is it critical to my work as a DBA? Not usually.
> Again, it depends on the situation. If your shop does a lot of C
> coding, and as a DBA, you're involved in lots of code reviews, then
> knowing some knowledge of C is going to help. Same thing with Java, or
> any other language. One area that I've been feeling a gap in knowledge
> is Java. I never learned it. We are getting more and more Java
> introduced. I feel like I need to at least take a basic Java class, to
> get a better understanding. Sigh, maybe someday......
>
> Hope that helps,
>
> -Mark
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org on behalf of Orlando L
> Sent: Mon 4/9/2007 12:14 AM
> To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
> Subject: Non Oracle knowledge to be a good Oracle DBA/expert
>
>
> Gurus,
>
> We all hear about Oracle books and manuals that we should read. What
> about non Oracle things we need to know to be a DBA? For eg couple of
> days ago David Litchfield posted a link to an Oracle paper on log buffer
> internals. The paper had lots of C code in it. Do I have to learn C to
> become a good DBA? What is the best place to start?
>
> Orlando.
>
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>
>
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