Re: an honest post about being an oracle ace
Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 17:40:06 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <1f140843-3b38-4acb-bac7-86eadaef494f_at_w1g2000prk.googlegroups.com>
On Feb 3, 3:02 pm, Chen Shapira <csh..._at_gmail.com> wrote:
> > "Convince the business they urgently need - RAC, Streams, Dataguard,
> > 11g, datawarehouse, materialized views. Whatever you want to learn.
> > Actually, most successful DBAs I know do that."
>
> > I think she's done some very good stuff, but must take issue with that
> > one.
>
> There are two ways to look at this:
> One is that I'm taking advantage of the poor business folks by
> tricking them into buying things they don't need for my pleasure. The
> other is that I help push and pioneer new technologies within my
> organization that will be fun (and more work) for me and have
> significant benefits for the business.
> The idea was not that "Successful DBAs can trick their management" it
> is "successful DBAs try new things and lead improvements."
>
> I wish I've received this comment in my blog where the person who got
> my (somewhat ambiguous and slightly tongue-in-cheek) advice could read
> the clarification.
Well, you can always reference this thread, not to mention do whatever you want in your blog :-)
But seriously, there is a problem with the line between marketing baloney and enthusiastic technical people. Some people call it "drinking the purple kool-aid," a reference to swallowing all the baloney in a cultish manner (it actually wasn't kool-aid at Jonestown, but anyways...). Thus you see classic papers like "you probably don't need RAC" or other things that are considered far-out at the time, now mainstream, and yet, the poor bidnesfolk still are sold the bill of goods. Now you see people quoting "Why guess when you can know?" in situations that are outside the bounds of the referenced methodology. For example, using an unpatched 10g in production and hitting a known bug, with people advising to delve deep into traces. Sheesh!
Some people just become cynical about the whole thing (eh tu Noons? :-) Too bad, I thought the Ace thing could be a decent variant on certs, basically a peer-reviewed version, with some decent peerage.
Personally I love tongue-in-cheek and ambiguity, but online, people will take you literally. And of course, successful DBA's will look at the tiniest details!
jg
-- _at_home.com is bogus. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.Received on Tue Feb 03 2009 - 19:40:06 CST