Re: 1 DBA in a company

In my case, I just hope nothing happens. The databases are fairly stable, I've only had to recover once in about 12 years, even being one of the first to jump onto the newest version of Oracle all the time. But, perhaps some of it is simplified by the fact that I also am the sysadmin for the boxes the databases run on, the LAN admin, the offices' Security Point Of Contact, local Active Directory admin, etc. It's a pain at times, but being in charge of all the various pieces that could affect the databases helps minimize problems as well.

I've been trying for years to get some backup, using the old argument "If I get hit by a bus, what's going to happen to the databases?" without any success. They are both highly custom scientific databases, and somebody coming in fresh could easily spend half a year or more just trying to figure out what I did and why I did it that way (I'm pretty bad at documentation, rarely having the time to do it).

Since I work for the government, management has been thoroughly indoctrinated in the old "Do more with less" dogma, deciding when they can hire someone, it's better to hire another scientist.

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• Bill Ferguson -- http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l