Re: training for new DBA's
From: John Hurley <hurleyjohnb_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2014 08:37:11 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <1391359031.59493.YahooMailNeo_at_web181203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>
I really like Andy's answer below ( first thought ). There are a bunch of "Introduction to SQL" or "Introduction to Relational Database" books that are worth considering. One possible approach is to find one of these that you like and work through the material "chapter by chapter" topic by topic with someone new. Give assigments or reading allocations and follow through and discuss them. At work we are taking a similar approach with some very strong people who are not yet accomplished "Oracle system DBAs" but are good application DBA's ( custom apps ). For that approach we are going through ( well just started ) Tom Kyte's second edition "Expert Oracle Database Architecture" book. People will be responsible for reading chapters and presenting key concepts to the team every two weeks. ( Then we will go through Cary Millsaps Optimizing Oracle Performance book and then probably Jonathan's new Core Fundamentals book. For someone totally knew to Oracle and also SQL it is kind of a chicken and egg kind of thing where to start. *** I've tried to hire within before and also tried to talk smart technical folks to making the switch to becoming Oracle DBAs and failed miserably. To me Oracle database administration is much like golf. They are both very well documented and the basic concepts are really not very hard, but to be successful (and happy) it also takes something deeper. And I'm not exactly sure what that is. As for questions or tests, I like to find out how much people read. Not necessarily what they read (though that gives you further insights too) but how much. Since databases and relational models may be new to the candidate, general problem solving questions and puzzles are really important. Possibly a take home test where they each have to design a tricky system or something. That could be fun. I remember the excitement I felt when I first ran, "select * from dict". I just don't know how to test for it in others.
Date: Sun, 2 Feb 2014 08:37:11 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <1391359031.59493.YahooMailNeo_at_web181203.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>
I really like Andy's answer below ( first thought ). There are a bunch of "Introduction to SQL" or "Introduction to Relational Database" books that are worth considering. One possible approach is to find one of these that you like and work through the material "chapter by chapter" topic by topic with someone new. Give assigments or reading allocations and follow through and discuss them. At work we are taking a similar approach with some very strong people who are not yet accomplished "Oracle system DBAs" but are good application DBA's ( custom apps ). For that approach we are going through ( well just started ) Tom Kyte's second edition "Expert Oracle Database Architecture" book. People will be responsible for reading chapters and presenting key concepts to the team every two weeks. ( Then we will go through Cary Millsaps Optimizing Oracle Performance book and then probably Jonathan's new Core Fundamentals book. For someone totally knew to Oracle and also SQL it is kind of a chicken and egg kind of thing where to start. *** I've tried to hire within before and also tried to talk smart technical folks to making the switch to becoming Oracle DBAs and failed miserably. To me Oracle database administration is much like golf. They are both very well documented and the basic concepts are really not very hard, but to be successful (and happy) it also takes something deeper. And I'm not exactly sure what that is. As for questions or tests, I like to find out how much people read. Not necessarily what they read (though that gives you further insights too) but how much. Since databases and relational models may be new to the candidate, general problem solving questions and puzzles are really important. Possibly a take home test where they each have to design a tricky system or something. That could be fun. I remember the excitement I felt when I first ran, "select * from dict". I just don't know how to test for it in others.
-- http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-lReceived on Sun Feb 02 2014 - 17:37:11 CET