Oracle FAQ Your Portal to the Oracle Knowledge Grid
HOME | ASK QUESTION | ADD INFO | SEARCH | E-MAIL US
 

Home -> Community -> Mailing Lists -> Oracle-L -> Re: Non Oracle knowledge to be a good Oracle DBA/expert

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

From: Anand Rao <panandrao_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2007 10:30:53 +0530
Message-ID: <d70710370704092200n4ce443cfsd79901435950c144@mail.gmail.com>


2 more cents...

Like Mark Bobak right said, i think the ideal way to be a DBA is to work through the ranks as a Developer and then become a DBA over time. this is the best way for someone to learn the fundamentals really well and then perform exceedingly well as a DBA.

at the same time, you really need to know your OS very well (as someone mentioned). you just cannot be an effective DBA without being half a 'UNIX System Administrator' yourself. you don't need to kick your friendly sysadmin in his stomach but there is no doubt that you have to be very adept with the OS. Sorry, there are no Windoze administrators according to me :)

when you starting becoming a specialist DBA, then certain skills really matter. for ex, Performance DBAs. if you are good at application development, design and programming languages such as 'C' , 'C++' or PL/SQL then you know the kind of mistake programmers are bound to make and you can correct them.

as many DBAs might have found out by know, a good chunk of your problems come from the code and not always those elixir like init.ora / spfile parameters or some config stuff at OS or SAN.

Without being a programmer you cannot possibly understand array fetching, cursor handling, etc, very easily. somebody with that knowledge can diagnose, troubleshoot and solve these problems quickly when compared to a DBA who doesn't have the experience of using these programming techniques.

at the same time, certain types of DBAs (Production Support, Backup and Recovery) need not come from a development background simply because the work they do doesn't need those skills all the time.

yes, today's DBAs need a lot of specialised skills but a good, seasoned DBA generally comes from a very humble background.

thanks
anand

On 10/04/07, Tony Aponte <Tony_Aponte_at_jabil.com> wrote:
>
> I don't know if there is one near you but have you thought of joining a
> local users group?
>
> Tony Aponte
>
> ________________________________________
> From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org]
> On Behalf Of Orlando L
> Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2007 9:14 PM
> To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
> Subject: Non Oracle knowledge to be a good Oracle DBA/expert
> Gurus,
>
> We all hearabout 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.
>
> --
> http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
>
>
>

--
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
Received on Tue Apr 10 2007 - 00:00:53 CDT

Original text of this message

HOME | ASK QUESTION | ADD INFO | SEARCH | E-MAIL US