Re: why administrator refuse to give permission on PLUSTRACE

From: DA Morgan <damorgan_at_psoug.org>
Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2007 06:15:02 -0700
Message-ID: <1193490896.740392@bubbleator.drizzle.com>

Robert Klemme wrote:
> On 27.10.2007 08:11, DA Morgan wrote:

>> Mark D Powell wrote:
>>
>>> I do not consider autotrace as being a necessity.
>>
>> I do.
>>
>>> Regular explain plan is usually good enough.
>>
>> The emphasis being, in my oopinion on "usually."
>>
>>> I suspect the DBA does not want
>>> developers running poorly performing SQL on production in order to get
>>> an autotrace to tune the SQL with when the developer should have just
>>> ran explain plan first.
>>
>> Here I agree and I will go one step further. No developer should ever
>> have access to a production database except as an end-user utilizing the
>> application. I've yet to see a legitimate reason for any developer to
>> have production access privs.

>
> I'm not sure I agree here - at least not with that level of strictness.
> There may be situations where a collaborative team effort (engineering
> and DBA) is needed to hunt down an issue that occurs on a production
> system. Sometimes it's not possible to recreate the same situation on a
> development / test system (because of load, data or time) and looking
> into the production system is the only chance. Granted, access could be
> given temporarily or all parties could sit together in front of the
> DBA's terminal.
>
> And then there are of course those shops too small to have their own DBA
> and that need to rely on the software provider to determine the root
> cause of an issue. I know, this should not happen (i.e. an Oracle
> without a DBA) but in practice...
>
> Kind regards
>
> robert

Assuming a competent DBA, one that knows how to run traces, one that knows how to create a StatsPack or run AWR, or one that can run queries against ASH ... there is nothing a developer can learn on a production server they can't learn from reading Cary Millsap's book, Jonathan Lewis' book, and looking at the metrics created by the DBA.

A developer rummaging around a production instance trying to diagnose what the DBA can not? If you can provide a scenario where this looks like a good idea I'd be interested in considering it.

-- 
Daniel A. Morgan
University of Washington
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond)
Puget Sound Oracle Users Group
www.psoug.org

Received on Sat Oct 27 2007 - 08:15:02 CDT