Re:RE: Griping about auditing (not the Oracle Kind)

Jay & GC,

    I guess I must live in heaven. Over here things are staying relatively the same as they always have. Developers develop stuff (applications, data warehouses, etc...) and in the process do some logical database design which the DBA's (me included here) get to review all of it, propose and even make changes, and then do the physical design stuff. We then together put it into one of the DEV db's where they can test/debug/volume test the app before it then goes into production. In PROD the only major change is that the DBA does the database stuff (all of it) with the developer looking over the shoulder as a second pair of eyes. Then we together keep an eye on how the app behaves. It's nice.

Now we do do a pile of paperwork whenever we make changes, especially in PROD mainly so that we have a history trail & communicate with each other before the fecal matter hits the rotary oscillator.

Dick Goulet

____________________Reply Separator____________________
Author: "Miller; Jay" <JayMiller_at_TDWaterhouse.com>
Date:       6/29/2001 11:40 AM

As you might have gathered from my previous e-mail I'm not a big fan of functional division as opposed to project division. Since I was moved to a different building from the developers much of the time I don't spend dealing with the new paperwork and bureaucracy I spend on the phone. I can see the temptation that people have to just say, 'don't think about working *with* the developers, just put their stuff into production and send it back if it doesn't compile' (this is my current job description), but I'm still holding onto doing some review, helping them with SQL, recommending hints, etc. Don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep doing it (though the appreciation and thanks from the developers helps a lot).

My impression (this is confirmed by a friend who was a product manager at his company and is now leading a consulting team) is that this is the latest management fad. According to my friend this goes in waves, with everyone moving to functional division, then project division, then back again. He's been through a few shifts back and forth in his time. This is my first one.

Jay Miller

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2001 7:52 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

On June 28, 2001 11:51 am, Miller, Jay wrote:
> Yep, I've dealt with incredibly incompetent consultants (Because of
> our new division of responsibilties, all programming must come from
> the development team. I

This brings up an interesting point - I've noticed that recently division of responsibilities is increasing and becoming more polarized. For example, in past incarnations, I was the dba, unix sysadmin, configuration manager, and responsible for software licenses for all software in the plant (in addition to whatever else the boss needed at that exact moment in time... :). Lately, however, I have started working on another project (in addition to my usual stuff) that has the sysadmin, development, "System" dba, and "Application" dba responsibilities spread across different group. Sysdba is handled by an Infernal Beuracratic Monster, sysadmin by somewhat Ejectable Data Sources, and Application dba stuff handled by we keaners. Very strange to have development arrive, review it for application impact, then send off any physical database change requests to another group.

I don't seem any valid reason to stratify the various responsibilities in this manner as it only seems to add several more layers of beauracracy without adding any addition value.

So,
a) am I alone, or have others seen this sort of stratification, and b) is my griping simply the loss of turf and the slowly broiling coup to get it back, or is it somewhat valid?

Cheers,
GC

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