Re: From ORACLE-L to DATABASE-L?

From: Kellyn Pot'Vin-Gorman <dbakevlar_at_gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2018 09:27:45 -0600
Message-ID: <CAN6wuX3c22DM5ssMMXFCeX+ptg9UOQeLnY-M+MVXbeoLAtP7kw_at_mail.gmail.com>



And my husband drags me out of the lurker category again... :)

I've always been primarily Oracle and SQL Server with a smattering of other platforms thrown in, (5 yrs of MySQL, 2 yrs of Sybase, etc...) but it was Oracle's technology that pulled me in its direction in the past, driving me with my passion to understand and to be part of the solution and the love of the Oracle community. With the introduction of the cloud and now the autonomous database, I found that their has been an unintentional alienation of the DBA. As a woman in tech, I probably didn't need anymore alienating, but many in the Oracle community have realized this and I appreciate their support to bring the DBA back, recognizing that it takes a village.

Microsoft already went through this alienation back around MSSQL 2000 and learned from that mistake. They've embraced their DBAs and slowly transitioned to the Microsoft Data Platform, migrating their DBAs into a technical role that grew with Azure. The community is more inclusive and it's not just an eyeball count to the age difference- I need to have data if I'm going to stand a chance in a discussion, so I ask a lot of questions. Yes, on average the folks are about 10 years younger and they're always supporting new speakers and sponsoring each other in the community. This has lead to a more diverse and younger group contributing. Expertise is more widely dispersed and they communicate at a level that I have trouble keeping up with. They are more likely to use Twitter, slack and newer technologies, but it's also lead to growth in the Microsoft platform, too. The optimizer for MSSQL is at, what I would call, a sweet spot for a DBA like myself. The introduction of the query store and latest optimizer features are an incredible advantage, offering incredible information, just enough automation, but still enough control that stability is more often the result. On the analytics front, Power BI is an astounding product offering everyone the opportunity to take advantage the value of their data- no matter the source with just a few clicks of a button or a query.

I still love Oracle, but I also believe in what Microsoft is doing with the Microsoft Data Platform and love the community. I also know that when you manage both, you need to really understand the architecture and design differences or your expertise can become a liability.

Long live Oracle and Microsoft! OK, PostgreSQL and AWS and Google, too. I'm the last one to pick sides.

Kellyn

[image: Kellyn Pot'Vin on about.me]

*Kellyn Pot'Vin-Gorman*
DBAKevlar Blog <http://dbakevlar.com>
President Rocky Mtn. Oracle User Group <http://www.rmoug.org/> President Denver SQL Server User Group <http://denversql.org/> about.me/dbakevlar

On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 9:08 AM, Jamey Johnston <jj_at_jameyj.com> wrote:

> I can echo what Tim is saying as a cross pollinator myself!
>
>
>
> - jbj2
> ---------------------------------------------
>
> Jamey Johnston
> _at_STATCowboy
> STATCowboy.com
> jj_at_jameyj.com
>
>
>
> *From: *Tim Gorman <tim.evdbt_at_gmail.com>
> *Sent: *Thursday, March 15, 2018 9:58 AM
> *To: *oracle-l_at_freelists.org
> *Subject: *From ORACLE-L to DATABASE-L?
>
>
>
> >> So, of course, I ask *Oracle* people about it. :)
>
> This thread is a good argument for expanding ORACLE-L to DATABASE-L.
>
> There is a vibrant technical community in SQL Server and it is long past
> time that these communities cross-pollinated better.
>
> As this thread shows, it isn't that one or the other DBMS is better, but
> they can be different in subtle ways which can trip up even the most
> experienced of us.
>
> And, as this thread shows, many of us are tasked with administering both
> DBMS packages, in addition to PostgreSQL and MySQL.
>
> I'm proud to cite my wife, Kellyn <http://dbakevlar.com/>, as an example
> of this breed of renaissance geek, as she is currently president of both
> the Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group <http://rmoug.org> and of the Denver
> SQL Server users group <http://denversql.org>, and she is likely soon to
> become the first person in the world to achieve both Oracle ACE Director
> (now alumnae) and Microsoft MVP recognition.
>
> One noticeable difference between the two communities is age. On average,
> Kellyn and I find attendees at SQL Server users group events to be about 10
> years younger than Oracle users group events, based on unscientific eyeball
> observation. Also, the SQL Server users group community has a much larger
> percentage of women attendees and speakers (i.e. about 40% for SQL to about
> 20% for Oracle).
>
> As a result, while the ORACLE-L list has been yakking along happily here
> on email for the past 20 years, the SQL Server community has been largely
> conversing on Twitter. Both communities blog at about the same rate and
> volume (in my opinion), and both communities seem to use LinkedIn to the
> same degree (in my opinion). So, the biggest difference in online
> communication style seems to be email vs tweets.
>
> So, if we were to go through the effort of changing from ORACLE-L to
> DATABASE-L (leaving aliases from ORACLE-L to point to DATABASE-L so folks
> can still find us), we would find adoption by the SQL Server community to
> be slow, because they would have a struggle paying attention to, and
> responding to, a high-volume email list. There are undoubtedly good ways
> to integrate email and Twitter, and I'm sure they can be quite seamless,
> but the first question is: what do y'all think?
>
> How do you personally feel about discussing and learning about SQL Server
> as well as Oracle? Would it enhance your prospects?
>
>
>
>
> On 3/15/18 07:23, Rich J wrote:
>
> On 2018/03/15 07:34, Jeff Smith wrote:
>
> Brent is a friend and an ex-coworker. He wanted to share the background of
> this customer's scenario, in case it would help you with yours.
>
> I let Brent know some folks were having...fun...with his take on
> autocommit.
>
> Jeff
>
>
>
> *Heh heh heh, I can only imagine. The difference on optimistic vs
> pessimistic concurrency nailed it though - the default combo of optimistic
> & implicit transactions makes sense in Oracle, and the default of
> pessimistic and automatic transactions makes sense in SQL Server. It's when
> you change only one of those two settings that you're screwed.*
>
> *The blog post stemmed from an app that had been written by SQL Server
> people, and then an Oracle guy came in and made a few changes. He switched
> to implicit transactions without understanding that everybody was doing
> single-line inserts/updates all over the place in code, not bothering to
> set transactions. He didn't understand the impact of what he was doing.
> (Not an Oracle jab by any means - the guy was well-meaning but just not
> prepared.)*
>
> *We got called in because performance went straight into the toilet. Even
> worse, rollbacks were rolling back completely unrelated transactions, and
> nobody knew why, hahaha*.
>
> Ah, that context adds a lot to the assertion. I still disagree that
> autocommit is a good practice for applications, whether it's Oracle or SQL
> Server, but I understand where Brent's coming from.
>
> And my intent wasn't to have "fun", but a sanity check for myself. IT
> changes constantly outside of my narrow focus, and as I've been following
> Brent's blog for years, that entry offers an opinion that is completely
> backwards of my understanding of how any modern RDBMS should work.
>
> So, of course, I ask *Oracle* people about it. :)
>
> Thanks all for the sanity check!
> Rich
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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Received on Thu Mar 15 2018 - 16:27:45 CET

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