Re:How to break into DBA/Systems work without going broke do

Dan,

    MANY years ago, seesh it's gotten to be 16 now, while I was still wearing a blue uniform I was getting my feet very wet in Oracle. Not by choice mind you. At the time I thought SQL was a disease believe it or not. Anyway, I got pretty good at the basics of developing applications in Oracle with the then version of Forms and Pro*C. Anyhow, one day the application we had recently deployed, known as the MIL-HNBK-300(automated) or Support Equipment Acquisition & Management System (SEAMS) had a problem in that it ran out of space. Back then we did not talk about tablespaces, they were partitions (no relationship to the current table partitions). The database came by default with a SYSTEM partition which is where all of our data & that of about 6 other applications ended up. Since I had been toying around with Oracle V4 on a PC and had gone through the exercise of creating a new partition I made the suggestion that we add one for each application. Bad thing to do!! When I was watching the movie "Hunt for Red October" I really identified with the CIA analyst (can't remember his name).  But "Write a Memo" really was what I should have done. I ended up spending a Saturday with the VAX cluster administrator backing up the database, adding the SEAMS partition, and moving all of the data via exp/imp. Come Monday morning, my All-In-One account came up with a $ prompt instead of the usual menu. Was there for 7 years and then retired. Went looking for a job, my current employer had just started working with Oracle (it was in house less than a month) so they hired me, paid for some Oracle courses & here I am today. Most of what I've learned has been via the school of hard knocks & it still hurts. Recently we hired a junior DBA out of school. He took an Oracle DBA boot camp type of course at Clark University as a part time student. Wish I could have learned things the way he did, but then we've knocked him about quite a bit too. He's been here for 9 months & has become rather competent although he still needs the occasional hand holding. Give him another year and at least one crash that we repair & I'll sleep very soundly at night.

Dick Goulet

____________________Reply Separator____________________
Author: "Dasko; Dan" <Dan.Dasko_at_cdicorp.com>
Date:       3/29/2001 8:31 AM

OK, now I have to ask a question. How did you(general) break into the DBA business? I'm not currently a DBA, I've installed a few development instances with the help of the NT dbassitant, tried looking for work as a DBA a couple of years ago, then realized how much I didn't know and in many ways was glad I didn't get a job as a DBA. Now, I'm playing 8.1.5 on Solaris, but really, I'm not cutting my salary in half in order to break into the systems side of the house, so how does a person move from development to systems without going broke in the process?

PS - I have some ideas, but I'm curious about your ideas.

Dan

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2001 11:11 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

Cherie,

    OK, point well taken, so "silver bullet" would translate into "the one item
that will succeed when no other does", "magic formula".

And, no he never did say he had an OCP, but he did say he was taking a "course"
to get his OCP. To me having an OCP certificate without any experience is totally meaningless. All it tells me is that you can memorize information and
take a test. It does not tell me that you'll hold up in a crisis or that you
really understand the consequences of your actions. That experience speaks volumes more. Now someone with a number of years experience AND an OCP certificate is a different matter altogether. Consequently my question, are new
people looking at the OCP as the gateway into a position that they could not otherwise get?

BTW: I'm not trying to either criticize or "brow beat" Xing. If that impression
has been left, then I apologize. He asked a question, similar ones I field in
house each day, and he was given an answer that is similar to the ones I hand
out to my developers although I'd have given him the page number too and a whole
lot less trash than Xing has gotten from this list. In my mind that is sufficient to the purpose. Now if that creates additional questions, a much longer dissertation on the results is in order.

Dick Goulet

____________________Reply Separator____________________
Author: Cherie_Machler_at_gelco.com
Date:       3/29/2001 6:35 AM

Dick/Lee/Joe,

I'm not trying to defend him but unless I have not yet recieved a post in my mail, Xing never said he had an OCP. Plus, Lee, I think you may need to define "silver bullet". It probably doesn't translate for people who don't use English as a second language.

Cherie Machler
Gelco Information Network
(really too busy this morning migrating a database to be sticking my nose where it doesn't belong)

dgoulet_at_vicr.com_at_fatcity.com on 03/29/2001 08:00:45 AM

Please respond to ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com

Sent by: root_at_fatcity.com

To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com> cc:

Lee & Joe,

    While I do agree that is possible one should try to figure these things out,
and this really is a simple one, there does come a time when asking for help is
appropriate. In this case Lee's answer is very much so. As far as taking an
OCP course, that does torque my jaws. Over the last two years we must have had
10 people looking for a job who's only mention of Oracle on their resume is that
they have their OCP certificate. Needless to say, not a one of them has been
invited in for an interview. I'll ask the question that's been bugging me for
some time, Xing, do you think this is some kind of "silver bullet" to getting a
job?

Dick Goulet

____________________Reply Separator____________________
Author: "Joseph S. Testa" <teci_at_oracle-dba.com>
Date:       3/29/2001 4:05 AM

Lee, i'm with you 200%,

oh and for the original addressee(and others) if you can't figure out what the heck that simple pl/sql block is doing(or where to figure it out), then quit diluting the OCP worthiness, people who study just to take the OCP and have no experience just go to further the waste of paper that the certificate is printed on. :)

joe

lerobe - Lee Robertson wrote:
>
> Xing,
>
> Have a look at the documentation, specifically, Application Developers
> Guide, section dealing with "Using Procedures and Packages".
>
> No disrespect intended but sometimes, certainly for questions such as
this,
> you will learn a heck of a lot more by digging around in the docs, and
> reading (and working out) the answer for yourself. That is certainly my
> experience. You will also fell encouraged to delve further and learn more
> about other packages etc. Hope my pointer will help you.
>
> To the rest of you - I know it would have been quicker to write down the
> answer to Xings question, but what will he have learned about the general
> syntax ??
>
> Regards
>
> Lee
>
> -----Original Message-----
> Sent: 29 March 2001 07:05
> To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
>
> Hi DBAs and SAs,
>
> Can someone tell me what is this ORACLE PL/SQL Script all about,..
> Ya... I know I have to read alot, my OCP course will start next month.
>
> BEGIN
> dbms_utility.analyze_schema ( '&OWNER', 'ESTIMATE', NULL, 5 ) ;
> END ;
> /
>
> Thank you
>
> Xing
>

--
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