Should DBA have access to sar and top?

I came to a new shop as a DBA recently and discovered I am not allowed to use either sar or top on a Unix server where Oracle database is installed. Unix system administrator gave me some explanation why DBA is not allowed to have access to sar and top, but to me it sounds ridiculous, to put it modestly. I can't see how can one be expected to do serious Oracle performance tuning and troubleshooting without those tools. I'm curious if any of you ever ran into similar nonsense and how have you handled it. Here's what I've was told:

"SAR and Top are system administrator tools and are therefore not required by any other users. System performance monitoring is an expressed function of the systems administrator. It is clearly stated in our job descriptions as being part of our responsibilities. This responsibility is not indicated in the job description of DBA's.

Additionally, these tools inflict an overhead of system resources, which could compromise the running of a server if not controlled properly. SAR especially utilizes a great number of resources (especially if all of the parameters are used). Currently TNG is running performance monitoring (SAR in the background) and we run performance metrics as well. If other users also run these same monitors it would be a gross and unnecessary misuse of server resources and undermine the integrity of the system with which we are charged to maintain. Systems administrators are responsible for the monitoring of all applications on the platform (Oracle, Unicenter, FTP etc.) DBA's are responsible for the performance of their own individual application and as such may use the dedicated OEM and statsback utilities."

Any comments are appreciated. Received on Fri Mar 26 2004 - 21:36:10 CST