Re: How to find out the current time zone in Oracle?

On 3 Sep 2001 05:35:12 -0700, pagesflames_at_usa.net (Dusan Bolek) wrote:

>
>In this group where majority are techies, I'll try impossible - defend
>management. :-)

No need, Dusan. :-)
Not all management is stupid. Some are, some aren't. Same as for techies, or anybody else. Nothing we can do about it other than identify and correct if possible.

>We're running our databases on Oracle 8.0.5. We're starting upgrade
>project, probably we'll move to 8.1.7, some techies want to go to 9i,
>but I'm against.

100% agreed. I'm not a great follower of "new releases" from ORACLE (or any other large maker). I call it the "bleeding edge", as opposed to leading edge. For obvious reasons. I'll let the long IT history of point releases, service packs, patch levels, whatever, speak for me on this subject.

>Conclusion is that is great that Oracle has developed new great
>product - Oracle 9i and after some time when 9i proves reliability, I
>will be happy to have this SW on our boxes.
>

Sure. You just touched one of my "buttons". This is one of my pet peeves with IT as it is today. May I suggest the following:

Are you willing to believe someone else's "proof of reliability"? Get 8i in there, by all means. Release3. It's a good release, lots of new interesting stuff. And getting very stable (at bloody last!).

At the same time (or slightly after!) let your techos play with 9i. You can do it without commiting to an upgrade. Negotiate an evaluation, whatever. Easy.

No commitment, of course. But let them play with it. Or you may find them looking to go somewhere else. Nothing worse for a techo nowadays than to block them off a new version of software. Particularly one as important as 9i.

Now, there's a school of management that says: "stuff them, do as I say and that's it. Nobody is indispensable. Techos are a dime a dozen".

Terminally stupid. The day someone does a *true* cost analysis of how expensive it really is to loose the "dispensibles", is the day corporations, companies, etc will save a *bundle* in their IT costs. Remember: hardware is cheap and getting cheaper, people are expensive and getting more so.

Staff turnover has a solution. Respect their careers, and it will disappear. Ignore them and watch IT costs spiral. No amount of "book manipulation" will hide that in the long run. I'm not suggesting for a moment this is your case. Just letting you know what the feeling of many techos is, nowadays.

I've seen it happen, again and again, over many years. Lollies, like "stock option" schemes, are only a stop gap solution. The techos that go for these are *not* the ones you wanna keep. They're the ones that will leave no matter what. Because their motivation is not their career.

There is the argument that allocating hardware resources to this self-training is a heavy, unnecessary cost. Fertilizer, of the highest calibre! Computing resources have never been cheaper.

Any el-cheapo Linux box will do for this type of self-training. Let them do it. It costs absolutely *nothing*, compared to training a replacement. And at the end when you feel 9i is stable enough, you have a pool of staff that knows the product already, and *also* knows your operations. There is your proof of reliability, no need to trust somebody else's.

No, they won't leave! People naturally resists taking unnecessary risks. Sure they can be poached, but they leave now mostly because they see their careers at dead ends with current management and HR ideology. 30 years ago when this type of in the job self-training was common, nobody left. The difference now is that it's *much cheaper* to do it. HR people just haven't realised this, living in lah-lah land like they usually do.

I'll let the "staff turnover/cheap labour/value for money" brigade take over from here. There is bound to be one dying to jump in. Probably freshly booted from a sinking company, or looking to place another boatload of third world "instant experts"...

Cheers
Nuno Souto
nsouto_at_optushome.com.au.nospam Received on Mon Sep 03 2001 - 09:31:02 CDT