RE: FreeOCP

I've been interviewing quite a few "Paper DBA's" recently -- it seems to be the fad here in Raleigh to take all of the classes and pass all of the tests, then try to find a job.

Not that this is a bad thing. I'm a big fan of hiring bright, motivated people. But in this particular case I need at least some experience. This is a production DBA position, on Unix, command line the main interface.

How are these for some basic questions for a production DBA?

"If a user calls you saying they can't get into the database, what do you check?"
"If the database crashes, where do you look first to see what the problem might be?"
"If someone calls, saying they're locked up, where do you find their session information? How do you kill that session?" "What do you do when you get an ORA-600 error?"

You wouldn't believe how many people don't know about "ps", the alert.log, v$session or metalink. I'll have to start asking about how to shutdown the database next. ;-)

So, anyway, it's not an exaggeration.

On the other hand, I think that OCP does help you figure out where you are weak. I started doing the Oracle7 tests a while ago, but now I'm on 8 and I guess I'll start up again. ;-)

Diana

-----Original Message-----
From: Rachel Carmichael [mailto:carmichr_at_hotmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2000 9:46 AM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: RE: FreeOCP

I'm not exaggerating......

yes these are things people should learn if they want to be a DBA... but not

everything is covered in the OCP exams. And if the only way someone has learned Oracle is by taking the exams, then they have holes in their knowledge.... basic holes. And THAT scares me.

Rachel

>From: SHAIBAL TALUKDER <shaibal_talukder_at_yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com
>To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
>Subject: RE: FreeOCP
>Date: Wed, 06 Dec 2000 04:41:35 -0800
>
> Come on Rachel, this comment is a little overblown, I
>don't believe that some one who is a OCP DBA does not
>know how to shut down a database. These are things
>some one learns or should learn when they think about
>being a DBA. I am sure this topics are well covered in
>OCP exams. The fact is somebody likes to get certified
>and some people do not. Some body like institution and
>some do not. It is always a choice and everybody
>should respect either stand. Exceptions are on both
>the side.
>
>S.Talukder
>Sr.DBA
>Convergys Corporation
Received on Wed Dec 06 2000 - 15:44:49 CST