Re: why administrator refuse to give permission on PLUSTRACE

From: DA Morgan <damorgan_at_psoug.org>
Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2007 19:52:39 -0700
Message-ID: <1194058356.601577@bubbleator.drizzle.com>

joel garry wrote:

> On Nov 2, 12:35 pm, DA Morgan <damor..._at_psoug.org> wrote:

>> Marc Blum wrote:
>>> On Fri, 26 Oct 2007 23:11:51 -0700, DA Morgan <damor..._at_psoug.org> wrote:
>>>> 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.
>>> Maybe because there's some urgent issue to be solved, maybe production ist
>>> coming to a grinding halt and there's a need for someone who knows the
>>> requirements and the implementation and the technology to get rid of the issue
>>> NOW! Production DBAs fail in the first and second point.
>> Great generalities. But lets pursue this. You are that developer. What
>> privileges do you require? What are you going to do? Lets see specifics.
>> I am really interested in hearing from any developer that thinks they
>> can justify this.
>>
>> From my perspective ... the applicatoin came to a grinding halt. What is
>> step #1? In my book it is determine what came to a halt. Was it the
>> application running on a client? The developer use useless. Was it a
>> network router or hub? The developer is useless. Was it a storage
>> related issue? The developer is useless. Did the server crash at the
>> operating system or instance level? The developer is useless. Anyone
>> that is a developer want to demonstrate their skill in addressing this
>> specific issue "production ist coming to a grinding halt" and tell me
>> what they would do. Thanks.

> 
> OK, I got halfway through writing a response to your reply to me and
> ran out of time, sometime hopefully I'll finish that :-)

I hope so but I'm going to shoot you down in just a second.

> Anyways, your post here was the sort of problem that got me my current
> major client.  They did not call me in as a DBA, at the time they
> didn't know what a DBA was (and still don't entirely believe me :-) .

And in what way are you disagreeing with me? They had no DBA. If they had a competent DBA the problem would have been addressed. Yes it would have cost you this specific client but that is not what is being discussed here. All you are saying is that absent a competent person you were good enough to fix the problem. But had the problem been something less obvious what would your methodology have been to triage and fix the problem?

Perhaps you found it because you are highly skilled ... perhaps because you were lucky. But would you want to run the production servers at an enterprise such as Amazon, Boeing, T-Mobile, Mitsubishi based on this?

> In small shops, people wear many hats.

If in a small shop someone is both DBA and developer then they ARE the DBA. Case closed. That is not the situation referenced in the subject above with respect to "Why administrator refuse to give permission." I am making certain assumptions in my response based on the subject of the thread.

-- 
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 Fri Nov 02 2007 - 21:52:39 CDT