Re: Where is Oracle’s Grid ?

"Daniel Morgan" <damorgan_at_x.washington.edu> wrote in message news:1071790390.835776_at_yasure...

>
> Beause it is the direction Oracle is taking the product. And those that
> don't learn it and implement it will be like COBOL programmers that will
> still writing COBOL in 2001.

Or they may just not agree with that direction. Let's see: 3rd party apps out there have serious performance problems. Mostly caused by moronic design, incredibly badly written SQL and generally inneficient coding. In what way is all this V$jazz gonna help in fixing that?

I reckon from past experience that you may squeeze out, tops, 15% performance by carefully tuning buffer caches to pattern of usage. That's not worth risking one's job over when what's needed is three orders of magnitude improvement to compensate for crap design.

No, Oracle is giving us useless stuff. The dynamic tuning in 10g MAY eventually become useful. But I reserve my judgement until I see it effectively used in a production environment when there are literally THOUSANDS of SQL statements in need of the most basic tuning.

> Then you have my empathy.

Well, I was using a metaphore. It doesn't apply to me, I haven't been a production DBA for the last 8 years. But the example is true. And not too far removed from reality: I know of at least half a dozen DBAs who got the boot after similar sequences of events.

> Let me guess: Siebel? SAP? PeopleSoft?

All of them.

> Consider that document called a resume'. It may take awhile for the
> right opportunity but I'd be looking for the door.

Well, so are the vast majority of Oracle production DBAs in shops with any 3rd party apps. The job is basically dead and Oracle is the one who killed it.

> I'm with you on many of the 3rd party suppliers. But why, exactly, is
> their refusal to follow advice given numerous times by Tom Kyte,
> Jonathan Lewis, Richard Foote, etc., etc. etc. Oracle's rsponsibility.

They CANNOT follow the advice! That IS the whole point! They do NOT have the source code to play with, they CANNOT change a single line of any production setup without incurring the "lost warranty" rubbish, they don't get the slightest support from Oracle if they dare go against the 3rd party maker.

> And before you answer let me ask a question.
>
> When you buy a car do you expect driving lessons?

Of course not. When I buy Oracle, I don't expect them to come over and run things for me. But that's what they want to do now.

>
> When you buy a steak do you expect the check-out clerk to come home and
> cook it for you?

Of course not. But Oracle wouldn't mind keeping the steak in-house...

>
> Then why do you expect Oracle to teach you, or the 3rd party app
> vendors, how to properly use their product?

I don't expect them to teach me anything! Most DBAs out there don't NEED instruction on how to run the product. Like anyone else, they are perfectly capable of deriving it from a manual, or a book, or a white paper.

What they cannot do is go against a 3rd party vendor without Oracle's support. And that support has over the last 5 years not been there at all. Since Oracle decided to get into the service bureau market.

Remains to be seen how many production DBAs will STILL recommend Oracle when the next upgrade cycle comes through. From their point of view, they do NOT want Oracle there anymore. Then we'll see how much $$$ Oracle really will make off this idea: in the long run.

Reminds me of the luminaries who turned Prime into a stellar profitable computer company in 1995-96: they cut the R&D budget in half. Great accolades all over the place on how well they were "managing" the company. Three years later the darn company was gone...

Any idiot can claim excellent policies at any given point in time. How well those policies survive the test of time is what defines IMHO the truly competent strategist.

-- 
Cheers
Nuno Souto
wizofoz2k_at_yahoo.com.au.nospam