Re: Are Oracle GUIs causing a decline in DBA salaries?

"Karsten Farrell" <kfarrell_at_belgariad.com> wrote in message news:MPG.191346457001e42798975a_at_news.la.sbcglobal.net...
> pharfromhome_at_hotmail.com said...
> > Has anyone noticed that the Oracle GUI tools and wizards are making it
> > far too easy to be an Oracle DBA?
> >
> > Just for fun, I asked my 9-year-old daughter to install Oracle9i on a
> > PC, and she was successful without a word of assistance from me. (BTW,
> > she though it was "real boring")
> >
> > Anyhow, I hear that the next OEM is going to be so easy that even an
> > MSCE will be able to do Oracle DBA work, and I'm worried.
> >
> > How will us Oracle DBAs be able to justify our salaries once Oracle
> > becomes as easy to use as MS-Access?
> >
> It's a good thing you had her do it on Windows instead of Linux or Unix!
> It's a good thing you didn't ask her to install Oracle9iDS.
>
> Installing is the "easy" part ... but you do have a point. Personally,
> I'm glad Oracle makes the "drudge" jobs a bit easier. I like OEM.
>
> I'm more concerned about Open Source databases stealing away a big chunk
> of Oracle's customers, leaving a lot of Oracle DBAs pounding the
> pavement, looking for a job. How many companies will look at the price
> of Oracle versus MySQL and ask "Do we *really* need all that power?"
>
> MS Access will rule the low-end and Oracle/SQLServer will rule the high-
> end and MySQL will yank away the middle layer. Uh-huh. And pigs will
> fly.

Regarding open source databases stealing away Oracle's customers, I think that'll happen, but not in a significant way. Open source databases will never achieve the level of performance of Oracle or DB2 because of patents. Unlike "new" technologies like web server where Apache can take a lead, or EJB app servers where JBoss can take a lead, databases have been around for such a long time that major ideas have already been patented. It's hard for MySQL or PostgreSQL to come up with totally new ideas and therefore it's hard for them to achieve comparable level of performance as the major commercial databases.

Just my 2c.

Cheers,
Dave

> --
> /Karsten
> DBA > retired > DBA
Received on Sat Apr 26 2003 - 14:01:09 CDT