Re: Career move - Oracle from Sybase

I find the first challenge faced by virtually anyone when switching between architectures is to get a relatively basic understanding of the new architecture and of the terminology. Once I have that, it's frequently an easy matter of applying what I learned in the first architecture to the new one.

Conversely, if I simply try to apply without learning the new architecture first, I'll be frustrated and continuously ask "why did they do it this way". Daily, I run across competent ex-[name of other database] DBAs and programmers who didn't learn the architecture and see the frustration ... many examples show up in this group.

My recommendations:

1. O'Reilly's "Oracle Essentials" book (http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/oressentials2/) will take about 3 days at a moderate pace and will give you a great high level understanding of how Oracle is trying to accomplish things. With this and your background, you should have no trouble navigating Oracle's technical docco.
2. Register on Oracle's Technet (http://otn.oracle.com)
3. Start browsing the vendor glossies/datasheets on technet for a feeling of Oracle's direction.
4. Check out Oracle's Technology Tracks (from OTN)
5. Get familiar with the documentation site, available from either http://docs.oracle.com or http://tahiti.oracle.com

Now you can consider installing and trying it out. By the way, I suggest reading the platform-specific install documents a few times before trying the install.

HTH
/Hans Received on Sun Apr 06 2003 - 21:26:24 CDT