Re: Im stuck in a black hole!

"Paul Brewer" <paul_at_paul.brewers.org.uk> wrote in message news:3cf132ed_1_at_mk-nntp-1.news.uk.worldonline.com...
>
> "Nuno Souto" <nsouto_at_optushome.com.au.nospam> wrote in message
> news:3ceb5fa7$0$15143$afc38c87_at_news.optusnet.com.au...
> > DBAs should most definitely NOT design databases. That has been a
common
> > and global problem of RDBMSs since they started. Database Design is a
> > SEPARATE discipline from administration of databases. Unfortunately,
> > there are still too many people in responsible positions in this
industry
> > who don't even have a CLUE as to what the difference is.
> >
> Nuno,
>
> I entirely agree with sentences 3 and 4. However, I'm not so sure about
> sentence 1.
> Some DBAs are skilled in both disciplines, and are lucky enough to be
> involved in design decisions from the outset. Others (irrespective of
> skillset) are not invited to be involved in the design or development
> stages, but are merely expected to provide the instance and tablespaces,
and
> look after availability, space usage, backups, recovery and so forth.
> That's fine insofar as it goes, but when performance fails to live up to
> expectations, the DBA suddenly becomes the focus of attention.
> Users: "Why is perfomance so lousy?"
> DBA: "Because the SQL stinks, and the design stinks. What has that got
> to do with me?"
> Users: "But you're the DBA; surely it's your responsibility; can't you
fix
> it?"
> You know and I know that we can now tune the database for all we're worth,
> and maybe even effect 100% improvements, but better design and SQL could
> achieve 5000% improvements.
> Unfortunately, by that time, it's usually too late.
>
> Regards,
> Paul
>
>
>

Yeah that is all too often true. In my firm the DBA officially has datamodelling in his job description.
However most of customers have Chinese walls between Development and Administration.
Most Developers only know Sqlserver.
DBAs are usually called in only after disaster has struck. Recently some of our developers designed a 1,1 G database. The SGA they came up with is 750M.
What do you think the hitratio is?
60!!! percent.
So I disagree with Nuno completely. The opposite is rather true: there are too many developers who don't have a clue what datamodelling is. Until this job I have now, I always did both. Unfortunately, tearing down Chinese Walls is not in my job description and not supported by management.

Regards

--
Sybrand Bakker
Senior Oracle DBA

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