Re: Need Oracle Consulting Services

Niall-

I must differ on the first point, Niall. My experience tells me that even "experienced" DBAs are rarely more than mere administrators. Very few really understand how the dbms product works and most cannot be bothered to learn. They tend to rely on "old DBA's tales" for kernel and tuning information and make key decisions on the basis of stupid wild-assed guesses as often as not.

Moreover, contrary to your suggestion, few DBAs have a qualified understanding of applications development and are justly viewed with a skeptical eye by the development community. It may be in their job description to understand applications, but few were ever programmers to begin with.

To be fair, it should also be pointed out that even fewer applications developers have more than a sketchy understanding of the database product themselves- witness the ubiquitous preponderance of crappy-performing and non-scalable systems. They won't listen to the DBA and don't even have the balls to talk to network administrators.

That said, rare is the consultant who can be called a "true consultant". Most are DBAs simply working on contract. It could be of great value for a Oracle customer to engage the services of a genuinely qualified consultant - one who can and will prove or demonstrate his knowledge - on a regular, if part-time basis.

Just my two pesos worth.

• ricky

Niall Litchfield wrote [stuff snipped] :
> 1. An experienced DBA *does* 'understands Oracle DBMS software operations
> AND can
> consult with application development and support teams regarding efficient
> SQL coding, database schema design' . That's the job description.
>
> 2. Consultants are brought in for specific problems to , as the title rather
> suggests consult. If you have a genuine consultant on site permanently then
> you are wasting money taht would be better spend on training and
> recruitment. Moreover I would expect if external teams are asking you to
> provide a consultant that you would be able to ask them to front the money
> for it.
>
> just my tuppence worth
>
Received on Sat Jul 21 2001 - 16:37:01 CDT