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Home -> Community -> Usenet -> c.d.o.server -> Re: On Becoming an Oracle DBA
Dan Beaton wrote:
>
> I am considering a career change to become an Oracle DBA. I was a self-taught
> DBA a few years ago on Progress, and enjoyed it very much. I worked on SCO
> Unix and IBM AIX at the time, and am comfortable with OS issues.
>
> I am looking at taking the various courses designed to prep you for taking
> the Oracle DBA challenge tests.
>
> Does it make any difference if I take these at an Oracle certified training
> provider?
>
> How much work beyond the courses is needed to pass the tests?
>
> Can I expect to learn enough from the courses and working on my own to pass
> the tests, or do I need to be working on an Oracle database in order to gain
> the knowledge?
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> Dan
Hi Dan.
I'm more of a do-it-yourself type.
If possible, join an Oracle User Group in your area.
They tend to have archives or presentations, papers, scripts, etc -
here's 2:
http://www.nyoug.org/presentations.htm http://www.ooug.org/slides.html Subscribe to the ORACLE-L list at fatcity.comSubscribe to Technet at http://otn.oracle.com Subscribe to Oracle Magazine - http://www.oracle.com/oramag. Check out the Ask Tom site at http://asktom.oracle.com Download the binaries and documents for 8.1.7 for your platform of choice.
As you have a SCO background, I'd say install on a Linux box.
Use a 2.2 kernel with a supported distribution to minimize the amount of
reconfiguration needed.
Redhat 6.2 and SuSE 7.1 are/were supported for this release - compiled
against glibc 2.1.
If you choose SuSE - subscribe to the SuSE-ORACLE list.
If not, subscribe to the ORACLE-LINUX-L at fatcity.com.
Subscribe to OraPub - http://www.orapub.com - lots of good papers there.
If you also use MS Windows, I'd recommend W2K Pro over WinNT Wks 4.0.
The install on Win32 is pretty simple and will allow you to devote more
time to DBA stuff rather than System Administration. (this will draw
comments, no doubt).
Get the NT/W2K resource kit - or install cygwin (as you most likely are
comfortable with bash).
http://sources.redhat.com/cygwin - find a mirror - its around 50 MB for
the full distribution.
For Oracle on NT - I'd recommend David Sisk's site
http://www.ipass.net/~davesisk/oont.htm
Books - I'd recommend "DBA 101" from Oracle Press (Theriault,
Carmichael, Viscusi) as a start, followed by the Oracle 8i DBA Handbook
(Loney, Theriault).
I didn't particularly care for the Oracle 8i for Linux Starter kit.
Bookpool.com has good discounts for Oracle books.
Here is the URL for the search front end for docs at Technet -
http://tahiti.oracle.com/pls/tahiti/tahiti.homepage
As others here will likely point out - the Concepts manual, Getting to
know Oracle8i, Release notes, Administrator's guide are a good starting
point -
http://otn.oracle.com/docs/products/oracle8i/doc_library/817_doc/server.817/index.htm
If you're installing 8.1.7 - check the 8.1.7 addendum to the 8.1.6 docs
also.
The wealth of existing documentation is your best bet - subscribe to
IOUG-A.
They have an archive of existing papers presented at their user groups -
lots of good stuff, particularly concerning "So you're the new DBA" type
stuff.
IOUG-A 2001: here's a few papers that would be a good start:
#00017.pdf - Be a DBA and still have a life: A Practical Approach to Standardization.
00016.pdf - Backup, Backup oh new DBA 00018.pdf - A Beginner's Guide to the Oracle Data Dictionary 00027.pdf - Configuring SQL*Net and Net8 00091.pdf - Installing Oracle 8i Release 2 (8.1.6.2) on RedHat Linux 6.x/7.x 00115.pdf - Maximizing Productivity When Running Oracle on Windows NT 00139.pdf - Oracle Administration Best Practices 00200.pdf - Things Sombody Should Have Explained Better 00212.pdf - Using Technet and Metalink
That will get you started.
Paul Received on Sat Aug 18 2001 - 12:08:31 CDT
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