Re: Profile of of a DBA - part System Admn / Part Network Admin / Part Web Admin

Ora <ora_geek_at_yahoo.com> wrote:

> an OPERATING SYSTEM expertise
> and
> NETWORKING expertise

> a DBA should have for effective functioning in his DBA Role ?

For effective functioning, the most important things are to

1. understand the basic concepts underlying networking, operating systems, and programming languages. You don't have to be an expert in any of them, although knowing the principles of how they work is important. For example, knowing everything about the scheduler and how it works in Solaris, Linux, and NT isn't necessary for a DBA to know. Knowing what a scheduler is, and understanding the concepts of timeslices and priority, is critical to understanding how the operating system and database work together.

The reason for the above is so that
2) you know what you don't know. You'll need to understand where your knowledge stops and when you'll need to consult with someone who does know the details.

That said, managing Oracle on a particular platform does require that you understand certain things in depth--but it's a pretty limited subset. When the Oracle documentation mentions an operating system or networking, or programming language concept, you should at least know enough about your platform to know how to find out how it works on your system of choice. For instance, a DBA should know how to find out the block size for a particular filesystem or how a language handles database connectivity. They don't have to be able to double as sysadmins or developers in order to be an effective DBA. A great one, perhaps.

Jer Received on Sat Jul 13 2002 - 03:55:15 CDT