Re: Developer Privileges

On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 15:20:17 -0700, Daniel interested us by writing:

> Hi guys,
> I have a question regarding the privileges generally granted to the
> developers at large companies. I'm currently a Siebel developer,

This is quite variable, and differs dramatically across companies, and even across departments/divisions within larger companies.

Personal opinion for an ideal situation, based in part on the responsibilities defined in Chapter 1 of the "Database Administrator's Guide", is:

At least 3 environments: dev, test and prod;

In DEV, the DBA would have little authority - it's your sandbox;

In PROD, the Developer should have no (zero, zip, nada) capability. It is way too tempting to 'make a quick little change';

TEST, which has a data set similar in size and makeup to prod, is the time when the developer and the DBA do unit and integration testing, tuning and cross-training. This is the time when the DBA gets to find out what you attempted to do and the two of you coordinate in tuning techniques.

In other words, I believe that the DBA (and not the Developer) is responsible for production. As a result, the Developer and the DBA need to coordinate time in the test environment to provide for both the Developer's need for a full size test harness and the DBA's need for adequate hand-off to assume the responsibility that [s]he is given.

In that situation, it is not unreasonable for the DBA to assume control of test, at least for certain times, to ensure the transfer of knowledge AND responsibility is complete. It is also not unreasonable for the DBA to [have to] give up total control of test to the developer for arranged times and durations (and for the developer to restore the system).

On the other hand, if your organization does not give the DBA full responsibility for the database in production - and the authority commensurate with that responsibility - by allowing developers to play in the prod environment, then a different set of rules in test will apply.

Let the counter-rants begin <g>

-- 
Hans Forbrich                           
Canada-wide Oracle training and consulting
mailto: Fuzzy.GreyBeard_at_gmail.com   
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