Re: set a rollback segment for a specific user

From: Daniel Morgan <dmorgan_at_exesolutions.com>
Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 15:08:46 GMT
Message-ID: <3D46ABB1.A380A16@exesolutions.com>

Richard Foote wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> Oracle Education most certainly *IS* training. A few points.
>
> 1) The core DBA curriculum is primarily aimed at the new/novice Oracle DBA.
> It's vital that the basics, the foundation knowledge and skills be in place
> before anyone can develop into a master. Oracle Education courses are
> excellent in developing these core skills and competences. Once in place,
> professional growth based on an correct understanding of how Oracle
> functions can take place.
>
> 2) Some courses are better (eg. Backup and Recovery) than others (eg.
> Performance Tuning). None are perfect but overall they serve their purpose.
> It's often the quality or otherwise of an instructor and the additional
> input they provide that makes or breaks a particular course.
>
> 3) The fact the Oracle courses are so tied with OCP is unfortunate. OCP has
> its weaknesses (no argument there), but that shouldn't distract from the
> importance and indeed relevance of most of the training available.
>
> 4) These courses should only be viewed as a *START* to the learning process.
> Nobody seriously suggests that a couple of weeks of training means you are a
> fully competent, Jonathon level guru. The fact that the OCP program suggests
> otherwise is, as I said unfortunate. But what it does mean is that you have
> all the necessary prerequisites to professionally grow and develop without
> incorrect assumptions or blind spots hindering or warping this. It's the
> subsequent experience and the trials and errors of being a DBA in a
> professional environment that completes the process (if it's ever really
> complete). And this takes time ...
>
> 5) Value for money is a difficult one. I personally believe Oracle training
> is too expensive and that some of the courses are a bit long and verbose.
> However, it was a rare customer who left my classes not satisfied with the
> training they received. Many, many of them have subsequently developed into
> excellent DBAs. How they would have developed without the training or with
> different training is difficult to say but much feedback suggests that the
> training they did receive was an important and worthwhile first few steps.
>
> My thoughts :)
>
> Richard
>
> "Niall Litchfield" <niall.litchfield_at_dial.pipex.com> wrote in message
> news:3d45ae79$0$12039$cc9e4d1f_at_news.dial.pipex.com...
> > "Daniel Morgan" <dmorgan_at_exesolutions.com> wrote in message
> > news:3D45A3E1.75CD45D0_at_exesolutions.com...
> > > I agree and would add that ... part of the reason people perceive Oracle
> > as hard,
> > > and/or expensive, to manage is that in truth they never received decent
> > training. An
> > > OCP class is not training. Oracle Education is truly not training.
> >
> > I disagree Oracle education is training (/pedant though it may not be
> > education /pedant). The trouble is education only gets you so far. As
> Connor
> > said to me in an entirely different post "experience is what you get when
> > you were expecting something else". training doesn't substitute for
> > experience - it merely prompts it. IMO anyway.
> >
> > I wan't to be clear though I learned a lot from oracle training. It was
> > worth the money. Actually let me say that again with emphasis ORACLE
> > TRAINING IS WORTH THE CASH. The problem is that folk think you can do 3
> > weeks worth of classes and end up with Jonathon/Nuno/Sybrand/Connor's
> level
> > of expertise. You can't. It does on the whole though prevent you from
> > commiting planned stupidity;this is A Good Thing (tm) The problem is not
> > the training its the expectations. We can argue over who is responsible
> for
> > these. I won't be budged on oracle education being value for money though.
> >
> > > And for those of us earning in six figures
> > Please don't do this to me you know it hurts <g>.
> >
> >
> > --
> > Niall Litchfield
> > Oracle DBA
> > Audit Commission UK
> > *****************************************
> > Please include version and platform
> > and SQL where applicable
> > It makes life easier and increases the
> > likelihood of a good answer
> > ******************************************
> >
> >
> >

I agree. I have received value for my time at Oracle Education. But you are correct that it is oriented toward the novice and is actually too expensive if the intention is to sell the product. I think, however, Oracle Ed is set up as its own profit center rather than set up as a means of pumping out more developers and DBAs that will recommend buying Oracle's products.

The weakness I observed were as follows:

1. Too much reliance on PowerPoint slides
2. Too little actual hands-on
3. The instructors had little, if any, real-world experience with the products.

They knew the material they were teaching well but often could not relate it to business problems
4. The presenters never made mistakes that required debugging. Leaving students with little ability to handle syntactic and logical errors.

Daniel Morgan Received on Tue Jul 30 2002 - 10:08:46 CDT