Re: Career PAth

Application development and database administration are closely linked disciplines - I wouldn't say that programming work is not very helpfull but it may be a short-term distraction if DBA is your ultimate goal.

If development opportunites are more firm for you, give more consideration to working in an environment with Oracle development tools (Forms 6i, Jdeveloper, PL/SQL, etc.) - you will find these very optimized for accessing Oracle database and PL/SQL (and now java) is the consistent language in both the application and database.

Look for an organization that may take you in as a developer but offer you the opportunity to (learn) transition to DBA. There is usually high turnover for DBAS so one at any given organization is bound to leave before very long, opening up a potential opportuntiy for the "DBA in training". With Personal Oracle available essentialy for free (evaluation purposes) or very affordable - it is very feasable to learn Oracle concepts and even hands-on adminstration on your own time, regardless of what opportunities any given company offers.

As you'll learn, a seasoned DBA must have a good grasp on application design and programming since the application is so integrated with (dependent on?) the database, influences the tuning techniques, and drives performance. Don't think that a DBA can survive in a vacuum. Personally, I would stay away from Visual Basic (programmers a dime a dozen) and C++ (being surpassed by Java). Focus on Oracle (Form, PL/SQL) and Jdeveloper (Java) tools. Hope this helps. Good Luck.

Cliff     

Lan Chiao wrote:
>
> To all who works in the Oracle environment,
> I am a fresh graduate from Australia with a degree in IT.
> If i want to be a DBA in ORacle, what path should i take?
> If i join as an analyst programmer, i will be mainly doing programming
> stuffs in VB, C++, Java and etc, which i think is not very helpful in me
> going into DBA line...
> Can someone show me some light ? i'm really quite lost.. Tks...
> REgards,
> Peter
Received on Wed Nov 29 2000 - 06:46:08 CET