Re: Help! I am totally lost

I think the main problem is you are coming from a background of a file based system (Access) to a commercial quality RDBMS. There are so many basics in general that you need that this NG can't possibly address it. You will hit these same lack of basics with SQLServer. You can use Oracle's migration workbench to mograte from Access to Oracle. The documentation is quite good. It has very detailed explanations - which could be daunting. Here is a list of documentation:
http://otn.oracle.com/pls/db92/db92.docindex?remark=homepage To get to the docs on the concepts:(good place to start) http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B10501_01/server.920/a96524/toc.htm (you don't need to use ALL the features; make things easy and only use the basics.) Also if you are a GUI person you can use OEM (Oracle Enterprise Manager) to "get to a console and create tables etc." - although the migration workbench will also do that.)

For the DBA:
http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B10501_01/server.920/a96521/toc.htm and
http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B10501_01/server.920/a96519/toc.htm (Oracle Press has some excellent books - Backup and Recovery also)

If you are windows centric:
http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B10501_01/win.920/a95490/toc.htm for those who use MS Access:
http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B10501_01/win.920/a97247/toc.htm

Jim

"Ragnar Midtskogen" <ragnarm_at_optonline.net> wrote in message news:cXXY9.390458$FT6.76641708_at_news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
> Thanks to all,
>
> At least it is comforting to know that it is not just me, it IS difficult.
> But I am wondering if a big part of the problem isn't documentation that
> does not explain the basics. I can also understand that it would require
> training to get the best performance.
>
> My boss isn't going to like this, we were supposed to be done in 3 to 4
> weeks.
>
> I would buy any number of books, if I knew which ones were good. Got any
> recommendations?
>
> To give you some background, the main impetus for going to a different
 setup
> was that when I converted the application to Access 2000 we ran into
> corruption problems on the first day, and we were not able to fix whatever
> was wrong. The client, (New York State, Empire Plaza) is using a Samba
> network run by some Unix servers at their data center. We had problems
> initially with the 97 version, but they upgraded some networking hardware
> and fixed the problem.
>
> We proposed moving the back-end to SQL Server, but they balked, stating
 that
> they had one SQL Server and would prefer not to add more databases to it.
>
> I think I am going to try to talk the client's IT center to reconsider SQL
> Server. I'm no SQL Server expert, but I can at least open the console. I
 can
> also create tables and stored procs. The differences in SQL dialects
 between
> Access and SQL Server is well documented. In short, I know pretty much all
 I
> need to know to do the job. If I get stuck we have people that could help
 me
> out.
>
> Ragnar
>
> "Brian E Dick" <bdick_at_cox.net> wrote in message
> news:RLBY9.20374$GX4.810759_at_news2.east.cox.net...
> > And to add that, hire a consultant for one day to get you started, buy a
> > book or two, take a course at your local community college, take an
 Oracle
> > University course.
> >
> > From your comments so far, I would recommend you not go at this alone.
 You
> > have a long road ahead.
> >
> > --
> > Later,
> > BEDick
> >
> >
> >
>
>
Received on Sun Jan 26 2003 - 22:22:09 CET