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Home -> Community -> Mailing Lists -> Oracle-L -> RE: What next ?
I agree - a VERY good post!
"PS: What does "X" DBA years @ 45-90 hrs/week translate to in human years"
Well, seeing as DBAs work like dogs most of their professional lives I would have to say:
Taking the average for a DBA year @ 67.5 hrs per week. 67.5 x 50 (you must get at LEAST 2 weeks off:) = 3,375 hours per year.
Now 1 human year equates to 7 dog years:
3,375 / 7 = 482 hours per year! Or roughly 20 days in a year..
GOD you DBAs work HARD :) I bet some of you can relate to these time lines though huh? :) Feels like you've worked a whole damn year, yet you are only a month down the line..
Dorothy
-----Original Message-----
Granaman
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 06:50
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Do you want a paper to say you are marginally qualified to be a DBA or do you actually want to learn database administration?
If it is the latter, my opinion is:
0) Learn as much as you can about Oracle in general. Being an exceptional developer means understanding what your code does inside Oracle, so start there.
[Not necessarily in strict order...either above or below this comment. there are some "functional dependencies", but parallelism increases throughput!]
By now, if you have learned this stuff and are actually practicing it, your DBAs will *LOVE* you! Find a willing mentor among them. Perhaps become the DBAs' unofficial liason to the development staff. You might consider holding "brown bag" lunch training sessions with the other developers to spread what you have learned...
4) Learn the basics of how Oracle stores database objects and how to properly size objects and realistically predict and accommodate object growth. Learn the importance of conscientious analysis in this respect.
5) Learn the Oracle architecture.
loop
Read the concepts manuals.
After finishing each section, go discuss it in detail with your
mentor(s)
Practice what you can on your sandbox system - at home or at work.
end loop;
-- Just when you think you know it all, read it again and discover what you
-- missed or misunderstood the first time around! Is this an infinite loop?
Yes!
-- Purposely! After 12 years, I still do it! The loop just takes longer to
execute now...
6) Refine and expand on your knowledge of tuning, recovery, ad infinitum...
If you just started doing Oracle development a few months ago, this is not an unrealistic plan. It might take a year. It might take more - or perhaps even less. You have a real chance of being invited into the "DBA club" at your organization in midstream! I've seen it happen.
This approach will build your real skills a LOT faster and much more solidly than "cramming for OCP exams" would ever do! You shouldn't need to "cram". If you actually learn this stuff, you can breeze through them! Much more importantly, you will have real experience! You will also obtain something that is much more important in the long run than the "knowledge" necessary to pass the OCP exams - actual understanding!
Knowledge is like data. Understanding is like the ability to process data. Data is important, but without the ability to process it efficiently, it is useless! In addition, knowledge (data) becomes outdated, but understanding is, by its very nature, adaptive.
[Odd and tangentially related aside: Ever had to take a trig class and memorize a lot of trigonometric formulae? Half-angle formulae, double-angle formulae, etc? Ask anyone who really knows mathematics if they have all these memorized. Some do from sheer repetition of their use, but many don't. These formulae are simply "knowledge". "Real" mathematicians and scientists don't have to clutter up primary memory with all this trivia! They know one simple equation, Euler's equation, know how it works and can derive any of them in a minute or so!]
Believe it or not, some of the most important and difficult things DBAs do is educate developers, advise developers, perform code and design reviews, and to (try to) compensate for poor development and application design practices - with things like tuning obscure instance parameters, shared pool size, and other "trick of the trade". Granted, there are some essential DBA tasks - backup and recovery, physical layout, Net8 configuration, etc. - that are not development-centric, but many of the best DBAs I've ever seen were, at one time, outstanding developers.
Contrary to official propaganda, OCP certification is not the holy grail. It isn't a Nobel prize. By itself, it is a learner's permit. It may also be useful to get over the threshold for that first DBA job interview. As soon as you feel comfortable with SQL and PL/SQL, take that exam. Take the others in what seems to you to be their nature order, as you progress.
Just my very opinionated opinion,
-Don Granaman
[Certifiable OraSaurus]
PS: What does "X" DBA years @ 45-90 hrs/week translate to in human years?
>
> Hello friend , Gurus
>
> I just start my Oracle developer job in April 2001, I feel interesting
in
> Oracle Dba jobs but my current job is stuck with only application
> development .How can I build up my DBA skill if I did't have chance on
doing
> the related jobs ?
>
> But I manage to build up a small system running testing in my home with
> Duron 750 + 128 Ram and 10 gig normal IDE , After I install my win2kpro
> ,oracle OEM and the database with pre-configuration option. everthing go
> smooth on that.
>
> I have manage to get a TOAD trial version to install in my win2k too ,
but
> what now ? Is there any pratical or tutorial on this ? Or taking the OCP
> exam and exam cram to study will help ?
>
>
>
> Raymond fall asleep in waiting for the Q.
>
> --
> Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
> --
> Author: Raymond Lee Meng Hong
> INET: RAYMOND_at_infopro.com.my
>
> Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051
> San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists
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-- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com -- Author: Don Granaman INET: granaman_at_home.com Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051 San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists -------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com -- Author: Mark Leith INET: mark_at_cool-tools.co.uk Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051 San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists -------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).Received on Thu Jun 07 2001 - 10:35:43 CDT
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