Re: 1 DBA in a company

I've really been trying to avoid responding to this thread, as some will doubtless find such a shameless plug as the one I am about to provide to be in poor taste.

<brazen-promotion>
There are many companies out there that provide services for people in just such situations (one which I too have found myself in in the past). My own employer, The Pythian Group (http://www.pythian.com), is quite happy to provide exactly this kind of service -- "backup" and on-call support for shops with only one or two in-house DBAs. Or Sysadmins.

Working a solo act? Want to be able to sleep a night? Or have a vacation that takes you more than a 1-hour travel radius from the office? Like to put your pager away for at least a few hours a week? Rent-a-DBA services can be exactly the right answer.

Nobody (that I know of) offers services like this for free, of course. But they don't have to be outrageously expensive, either. Pythian, for example, operates on a pay-as-you-go model (based on hourly rates; no per-database or per-server fees) with minimum commitments of as little as 16 hours per month. (Be careful with those minima, though. That's only two person days per month; how much work can *you* accomplish, and how many pages can *you*resolve in only two working days?)

I'm sure that if you shop around, you'll likely find other providers, too. But none, I am sure, are as good as we are. ;-)

The Pythian Group happens to support Oracle, SQL Server, and MySQL databases, and we provide Linux (UNIX) sysadmin. Heck. I think we might even do (shudder) Windows, although happily I do not. :-) We also provide 24x7 pager support.
</brazen-promotion>

Seriously folks, if you find yourself working as a solo act, you really * should* consider a backup service. Not all are created equal, so choose carefully. But when you choose a good one you *can* get many of the things that people posting on this thread find they lack when working solo:

• Somebody to mind the pager at night (and on weekends).
• Somebody to bounce ideas off of, or who you can go to for second opinions.
• Somebody to cover your (real!) vacation.
• Somebody to help cover the occasional gap in your experience. (And let's be realistic; *nobody* knows *everything* about Oracle!)

On Sun, Aug 31, 2008 at 6:16 AM, Howard Latham <howard.latham_at_gmail.com>wrote:

> Course I forgot _ i'm also the only Linux SYSADMIN - I do have nightmares!
>
>
> On 25/08/2008, BHoff_at_tnsk.com <BHoff_at_tnsk.com> wrote:
>>
>> That's basically where I am - I can usually manage everything, but it
>> would be great to have at least one other DBA here to just bounce things
>> off of and get someone to challenge my ideas - that's how I get better
>>
>> I try to replace that with lists like this one, but the one problem with
>> being subscribed to a handful of lists like these is the sheer volume of
>> e-mails that I just do not have the time to sort through until the
>> weekend... which usually means I do not benefit from the conversation at
>> hand at the moment.
>>
>> Does anyone else use the lists like that? Are there any good forums that
>> you would recommend?
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Brad
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
>>
>> [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Dwayne Cox
>> Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 10:15 AM
>> To: jeremiah_at_ora-600.net
>> Cc: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
>>
>> Subject: Re: 1 DBA in a company
>>
>>
>>
>> > Being the only DBA in an organization is difficult for more reasons
>> than just time off. Most people learn by collaboration, and bounce
>> ideas off each other. With no exchange, you can often find yourself
>> with nobody to provide a sanity check, especially in critical
>> situations.
>> >
>> I have learned to deal with being the lone DBA but not having someone to
>>
>> bounce ideas off has been the biggest disadvantage for me.
>>
>> dwayne
>>
>>
>> --
>> http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
>>
>>
>> --
>> http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Howard A. Latham
>

-- 
Cheers,
-- Mark Brinsmead
Senior DBA,
The Pythian Group
http://www.pythian.com/blogs

--
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