Re: Learn Oracle in three days?

Michael Wilkinson wrote:

> Thanks everyone for the responses - As I expected, I seem to have
> gotten everything in the spectrum from "you are doomed" to "it may be
> doable." I'm going to at least make a stab at it, and worse case
> scenario I will end up throwing it back into the project manager's
> face. I've learned more since my last email - The data will be stored
> on a EMC array, so the likelihood of losing data due to disk failure
> is pretty remote (but that likely means that the database pieces will
> likely be raw access, so doing a "down it and do a filesystem backup"
> will likely be impossible. We use Vertias Netbackup to backup dbspaces
> and logical logs for Informix so it's expected long term that we will
> do the same with Oracle. Short term I will likely do log and database
> backups to disk first because our netbackup san network of dlt tape
> libraries is pretty touchy.
>
> The actual space being used will be relatively small at first, but it
> will grow quickly. On one end of the pipe is Informix, and the other
> SAP. It will be interesting how this all works. I may be insane, but
> I'm looking forward to learning oracle in earnest because it and DB/2
> are the only two major databases system that I have not "experienced"
> yet. There are no blobs or multidimensional monsters in the design
> that I have seen yet, so I won't have to focus any attention there.
>
> It's a shame that system requirements are so insane, I have not been
> able to find a place to install a "play" instance for me to experiment
> with yet. I'm hopeing to get an ODBC link up to it as well so I can
> talk to it using "familar" interfaces as well.
>
> From my reading so far, My gut is telling me that if I can get all the
> core oracle terminology/concepts babble down, I might have half a
> success of keeping this thing alive on life support (for the time
> being.) Clearly I won't be winning any oracle trivia contests. Alot
> will also depend on how well behaved the programs that the outsourcer
> provides will be as well.
>
> Wish me luck,
>
> - MW
>
> "charlie.peltier" <charlie.peltier(delete here-antispam)@verizon.net> wrote in message news:<THMD8.11113$5J3.5749_at_nwrddc01.gnilink.net>...
> > It really depends.
> >
> > Everyday I find something new in Oracle for almost all the Oracle books on
> > shelves even though 80% of them are the same. I guess nobody can say they
> > know enough about oracle.
> >
> > But I went to several sites that their dba almost knows nothing about
> > Oracle, and their databases are still running. They never did any
> > perfomance tuning, never did any sql tuning, they did not even know what
> > optimizer_mode is, just take the default, but their databases are still
> > running.
> >
> > In my mind, if it is a small shop, as long as you know how to install,
> > change some parameters in init.ora, bounce the database, know how to backup
> > and recovery, and most importantly, know how to communicate with metalink,
> > you can be on your way to manage a small database. To know all this, three
> > days of intense study may be enough.......
> >
> >
> > cheers
> >
> >
> > "Andy" <enzoweb_at_hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:8d4033cd.0205122218.3a7ced7e_at_posting.google.com...
> > > I would strongly recommend getting in a contractor to do this and show
> > > you the basics. Oracle is a huge, complex system and it's ridiculous
> > > for your management to expect you to do this.
> > >
> > > It is very easy to install Oracle and accept all the defaults through
> > > the GUI and it will probably work. For a while. Spend a couple of
> > > grand on a contractor now and you won't have to come in early each day
> > > in a couple of months (including weekends) to try and fix all the
> > > problems you'll encounter.
> > >
> > > Good luck.

It seems, from what you have just posted, that you think the DBA job is a glorified SysAdmin job. You will need more than luck if that is the case.

I'm wondering how your are going to set up profiles? protocol.ora? find waits and resolve them? look for SQL not using bind variables? determine the optimum shared pool size? deal with an ORA-00600? and all the other things Oracle DBAs do as part of justifying their existance.

Daniel Morgan Received on Tue May 14 2002 - 10:23:56 CDT