Re: I'm the new DBA... what now?

Philip Hallstrom wrote:
>
> Hi all,
> I'm sure this has been asked about a million times, but I looked
> at the faqs I could find and it didn't mention it...
>
> We finally decided we needed a real database so we went with Oracle 7 on
> SPARC Solaris (Workgroup Server).
>
> Well, I have just about zero experience with Oracle. I installed it,
> changed the initial passwords, bought several Oracle books (from
> Oracle), and am wondering where to go now (other than read the books :).
>
> My situation is this - I maintain our unix boxen/webservers/ftp
> servers/etc... so we are going to be using Oracle for a lot of
> backend/cgi stuff so I'm not interested in the GUI features (building
> Windose apps) of Oracle, but more interested in just getting it to do
> what I want, be stable, and secure, etc...
>
> And of course it all needs to be implemented by yesterday :)
>
> So... I've looked at various classes offered by Oracle, etc..., and
> although I'm sure they'd all be useful, I don't want to waste a lot of
> time.
>
> I'm sure some of you are in this same boat... can you shed some light on
> some good books, classes you've taken?
>
> Thanks!
>
> -philip
> --
> --
> Philip Hallstrom Sierra On-Line, Inc.
> philip.hallstrom@sierra.com http://www.sierra.com/
HI there! I'm in the same position! We bought SUN Ultra 2 & 1 servers and are running Oracle Workgroup 7.3. Our task is the conversion of a million-record database/application suite in 12 months. Fun.

I've picked up & read large portions of the following books: Oracle DBA Handbook, Oracle Press
Tuning Oracle, Oracle Press
Oracle Performance Tuning, O'Reilly

We also have the folowing CBTs:
Administer the Database I & II
Intro & Advanced SQL, PL/SQL
Basic Data/Basic Function Models

The CBTs are not bad but expensive - I think the courses would be of more benefit after 3-5 months experience rather than right now. I personally don't get a lot out of the courses given the time I need to put into them. I sympathize with your time constraints - I can't afford 3 weeks of Oracle courses either. I need to be at the office.

We are presently in the database design stage - we first did an analysis of the old system, DFDs(Data Flow Diagrams), ERDs(Entity Relationship Diagrams), re-structured the ERDs, Optimized DFDs, and are now just starting the physical design. We'll do prototype screens next.

It has taken me five months to get here, working about 1-1.5 days/week on it(plus a lot of ruminating). I expect another full 3 weeks(full-time) before we implement our design.

My only advice to you is 'take it slow'. Know your parameter files inside & out. Understand table sizing parameters with reference to tuning. Understand what kinds of queries your tables will experience. Read the tuning books after the DBA books but before implementing.

Keep in touch and send me any advice you've received or anything you've learned. Thanks in advance.

BTW - Let me know if you hear of a good Enterprise Production-quality reporting tool. Received on Sat Jun 07 1997 - 00:00:00 CDT