Re: opinions on oracle or IBM training....

I won't comment on the IBM product (2 reasons - flame war and not as familiar with it).
If you learn 8i then you have a good foundation for 9i. No one knows 9i really before it is out; people need experience using all the features. 11i is not a database but a program - Oracle Financials et al. Completely different beast. True you install 11i on an 8i database, but 11i is not a database but an application.

If you want to become a DBA then learning 8i is well worth it. If you want to become versed in application implementation then 11i would be worthwhile. I believe that if you have a good grounding in Oracle 8i, at least the basics, then you will actually know quite a bit.

That said. I am sure IBM has a fine product and learning how to administer their product would probably also be valuable.

I think in any event being someone who is a good problem solver will take you far. Being able to understand a system and from first principals debug a problem is very important. For example, often people want to know how to make their system perform better. Performance is really a whole chain of software, and hardware and interactions. Understanding why increasing the number of CPU's on a one disk drive system isn't going to get you much in the way of a performance gain is not something that is dependant on any particular RDBMS. Backups are a part of the DBA job and having policies and procedures and testing them etc. are going to be a basic no matter what RDBMS you decide to specialize in. True the actual details will probably be different.

That may not give you the answer, but it gives you somethings to consider. Jim

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"pheonix1t" <pheonix1t_at_netscape.net> wrote in message news:UBFO6.126453$K5.11834952_at_news1.rdc1.nj.home.com...
> hello people,
> I'm about to start embarking on training for dba. At first I was going to
> go with oracle but now i'm starting to wonder about IBM. Which oracle
> product is better to get certified on? I've seen a lot of 8i stuff....but
> what about the 9i or even 11i? What's the difference?? How long will 8i
> last for??
> Oracle also said they are coming out with an improved version that doesn't
> need as much maintenance on it so as to cut costs of ownership.....which
 one
> is that??
> Now IBM.....how do the oracle products stack up against the DB2 from IBM?
> From recent news, IBM seems to go more with the cross-platform/work with
> partner approach that seems to be a better business strategy from what
> several news sources have said compared to oracle which is a more closed
> approach. Is this true?? What do real-world professionals have to say
> about this?? How do you people feel about this? I'm going to invest a
 lot
> of time and energy into this so I really want to be sure I've made a good
> decision.
> What about doing both?? Are they really that different?? Is it like
 saying
> MS compared to a unix/linux machine??
> Sorry for all the questions..........but I really want to know !
>
> Oskar
>
>
Received on Wed May 23 2001 - 00:12:47 CDT