Re: Manage a database?

Hi Brian,

    Run, do not walk, to the nearest large bookstore and get yourself a copy of Kevin Loney's Oracle DBA Handbook (Oracle Press, Osborne-McGraw Hill) for whatever version of Oracle you are using. Read it from cover to cover and then read it again. (The Oracle 7 version of the book is 656 pages plus indexes.)

    Meanwhile, assuming that your production databases aren't giving you any problems -- yet, your top priority has to be space management. The reason is that if you run out of space your users may not be able to get their work done or, if you run out of space in the wrong place, Oracle may decide to take a vacation and, in extreme cases, Oracle may crash or your database may be corrupted. What you want is a script that you can run every day that will show you how much disk space you have allocated, how much is used and how much is free on a datafile by datafile basis. Run the report at the same time and monitor the free space on a daily basis until you feel that you can project the growth requirements for your databases. On a one time basis you want to find our if any of your users are creating tables in the SYSTEM tablespace. If they are use the ALTER USER command to change their default and, if necessary, temporary tablespaces.

    As soon as you feel that you have a handle on space you can start monitoring performance. Time to hit the bookstores again. You are looking for a good book on Oracle tuning. There are several of them out there and, if you decide to remain a DBA, you will probably wind up reading all of them. They are loaded with scripts that will enable you to measure the performance of your database and identify problem areas.

    To complement the in-depth treatments that you will get from the DBA Handbook and books on subjects such as Tuning, Backup and Recover. and whatever I suggest that you read Mike Ault's two Oracle DBA Exam Cram books. They cover a lot of ground in a very concise manner.

    One other thing you should do, get your employer to send you to school. It is possible to become a DBA in a vacuum, but exceedingly difficult. It really takes a combination of hands-on, book lore, formal education, and person-to-person communication.

regards
Jerry Gitomer

Brian Yan wrote in message <7oc8ub$d45$1_at_nnrp1.deja.com>...
>Hi everyone,
>
>I am a newbie on Database admin. I was just assigned to manage
two
>production instances. Could anyone tell me what kind of routine
(admin
>works) I should perform regularly? (For example, space
monitoring,
>performance monitoring? What kind of parameters I need to
monitor
>for space and performance? What else I need to monitor
regularly? )
>
>Thank you very much for your help!
>
>Brian
>
>
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Received on Thu Aug 05 1999 - 12:42:15 CDT