RE: Oracle's relationships with expert DBAs (and the rest of us mere mortals)

Charles,  

I like this quote:  

She claimed that the British are particularly good at hacking as they have "the perfect temperament to be hackers--technically skilled, slightly disrespectful of authority, and just a touch of criminal behavior."  

Nothing like a back handed complement to make new friends.  

To answer your question, I like being a DBA except for the challenges that Oracle places in front of us just to do our damn job. The quarterly security updates IMHO point to a total lack of testing and proper software development on Oracle's part.  

In the article, the Oracle CSO complains about "most software people are not trained to think in terms of safety, security and reliability."  

She should really be looking in the freeking mirror! The buggy stuff that Oracle releases and then depends on us to report back to them shows a total lack of regard for their customer.  

Just my little 2 cents.

Tom  

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Schultz, Charles Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2006 9:18 AM
To: oracle-l
Subject: Oracle's relationships with expert DBAs (and the rest of us mere mortals)  

Keywords: Mary Ann Davidson, CNET, Oracle Chief Security Officer, security researcher, security holes, security fixes, security patches

Reference:
http://news.com.com/Oracle+exec+hits+out+at+patch+mentality/2100-7355_3- 6077349.html?tag=nl
<http://news.com.com/Oracle+exec+hits+out+at+patch+mentality/2100-7355_3
-6077349.html?tag=nl>

It is not my intent to start a snowball of ramblings opinions about various CSOs, researchers, the "State of Software Development" or anything else along that line. But reading the many opinions expressed on Slashdot, CNET and even the CSO's own article (http://news.com.com/When+security+researchers+become+the+problem/2010-1 071_3-5807074.html?tag=nl
<http://news.com.com/When+security+researchers+become+the+problem/2010-1
071_3-5807074.html?tag=nl> ). Instead, I was wondering if folks still really like working with Oracle products, despite the bugs, despite Metalinks (referring to the recent threads here), despite the security holes. I got the impression for "OakTable Insights" that those guys really love their job, and they have been doing it for quite some time. I consider myself an intermediate DBA, and while I really enjoy learning new things, the politics surrounding the software really get under my skin.

I am assuming that a vast majority of you enjoy being a DBA and the challenges associated with that. How much of that enjoyment is strictly from Oracle (because of the robust features, ingenious and vast user community, etc)?

charles schultz
oracle dba
aits - adsd
university of illinois  

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