Re: Future of Oracle DBA - Man vs Machine

Re automation of database work:

I would agree there are many things that can be and should be automated.

As discussed later in this conversation, much of that is already done.

Patches, backups, upgrades and the like aside, keep in mind there are many tasks aligned with being a DBA that are not purely operational.

(OMG, that sentence I wrote sounds like something Mark Farnham would say. One of us should be flattered. )

One of the 'new' things being touted is automatic tuning.

OK, we're going to get you a new execution plan with automated baselines and the like.

While these things serve their purpose (sort of, personally not a fan), there's an awful lot of human intervention that goes on.

As long as untrained and poorly trained (also read as ignorant) people are designing apps, there will be a place for other humans to figure out how to workaround the poor designs.

Jared Still
Certifiable Oracle DBA and Part Time Perl Evangelist Principal Consultant at Pythian
Pythian Blog http://www.pythian.com/blog/author/still/ Github: https://github.com/jkstill

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