Re: broad discussion about future market direction for DBA

I have to agree with Richard regarding the Employment outlook in Australia. There is a small amount of Perm and Contract work here in OZ, and most people are hesitant to move jobs with the state of the industry. Although, here in Brisbane, I've not seen an Oracle DBA position advertised for 1.5 months. The IT industry is in a slump at the moment, but will undoubtly pickup in the future, and in 5 years time the industry will be booming again. Mind you, we are finding an increasing trend of Australian Companies (and Govt. Departments) outsourcing IT work internationally, could Australian IT go the way of the Australian Textille industry?

Anyway, so what's the future of Oracle, XML is the big one and is definatly where Oracle is trying to move toward. And there is still the requirement of storing the data efficiently and querying the data quickly.

I'll never know all things Oracle, but I can learn them when it's required, which makes me think, maybe it may be worthwhile learning about Peoplesoft or some other software product. One more finger in the pie can't hurt can it?

Cheers,

Greg.  

> Hi Shridned,
>
> I must say the market here in Australia isn't particularly great but there's
> enough Oracle DBA work around to keep one going. There are very very few
> permanent Oracle DBA positions going around. All the positions are filled by
> people with nowhere really to move onto (a bit like musical chairs without
> the music and without anyone being game enough to leave their very
> comfortable seat). Oracle training is really struggling at the moment as
> there are so few new people that require training.
>
> The role of an Oracle DBA has always been an evolving beast and so it will
> continue. As some facets of the role become obsolete, new facets develop and
> become important. Of much importance is still Security, Data Safety,
> Availability and Performance and it's these key areas that ensures the role
> of the DBA is not redundant. Large organisations and Government departments
> still see value in someone that can provide these services. Whether that
> someone is a permanent employee, or an outsourcing agency or an all round
> nice guy contractor is another question ;)
>
> On the specific issue of using "new features" and using "Oracle to it's full
> potential", I agree that few do. Then again, many of these so called new
> features have as many issues associated with them as they resolve. I
> personally believe that using Oracle to it's full potential primarily means
> ensuring applications are written to a reasonable level of efficiency. Most
> performance tuning issues I've resolved have been addressed by fixing code,
> not fixing the database or using any particular new feature per se.
>
> I also find that due to advancements in servers and disk systems and the
> such, many of the old issues of fine tuning are not as relevant. Where
> previously it made some difference, now there's not the same return in
> investment. I'm not suggesting that database tuning isn't important, of
> course it is, it's just that now close enough is often good enough.
>
> I also believe that some of the marketing hype by Oracle itself regarding
> such things as self tuning, self installation "out of the box" solutions and
> the such is having some effect. Organisations are now thinking, "Shit, if
> it's that easy, do we really need a DBA (or 5)". The answer invariable is
> "well actually, yes you do" but who is making these decisions ? Often people
> with limited technical knowledge and more of an eye on bottom lines and
> profitability, rather than buffer cache hit rates (oops, probably should
> have used a different example ;)
>
> I believe there is still a market (albeit somewhat depressed) and will be a
> market in the future (until approximately 14i or so) for the knowledgeable
> Oracle DBA type position. And that's because the key issues I mention
> earlier (such as Security, etc.) genuinely requires it. Also many of these
> so called new features actually adds complexity to the database just as many
> reduce this complexity. (Note Oracle marketing will focus on some new
> features as added functionality and " in the same breath" mention how less
> complex looking after everything has become. The picture is thus distorted).
> The focus is continually shifting and hence should the focus of the DBA.
>
> Having said all that, I'm still keen to learn the guitar and have something
> else to fall back on as my optimism could be totally and utterly wrong (and
> the way I play the guitar, this would be a real worry).
>
> Cheers
>
> Richard
Received on Sun Nov 17 2002 - 20:05:37 CST