RE: [OffTopic] Curiosity about vision of the future for dba oracle ...

I believe you are both correct to a certain extent from distinct viewpoints.

Cloud vendors might well through hardware at a problem to charge higher total fees until some critical process is of the variety that cannot be "hardwared out of" sufficiently to be accepted. Then the last remaining bastion of full service experience DBAs comes into play and the most resource consumptive and elongated response time bits of the software and hardware stack are corrected.

So will demand for doing things well drop over time?

I don't know and I believe it is difficult to project solution spaces for the simultaneous equation including variables of at least:

1) Overall hardware capabilities including, but not limited to, reducing memory into cpu lag time and effectiveness of parallelism from the system to the application interface
2) Total demand for computer horsepower
3) Total demand for reduced elapsed time of very complex problems where a mistake in choosing the solution path can vary by orders of magnitude.
4) Relative improvements over time in the underlying software to avoid costly mistake in choosing the solution path
5) Network latency and bandwidth versus the demand to collate data from a variety of sources on the fly into a useful aggregation.

I probably have left out more than I have included.

I believe the solution is to plan to be very good at what you do from an axiomatic approach so that you understand the fundamentals and can shift the application of your skills as needed or compete for the possibly dwindling open seats for "database operator" folks who we count amongst DBAs.

That prediction I think CAN be made: User interfaces to operational tools will improve in the sense of becoming less and the things that are tedious and only require somewhat complex automation will be cheaper to do with machines, so those job seats are in peril.

-----Original Message-----
From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org [mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Mladen Gogala Sent: Saturday, November 11, 2017 10:11 AM To: Stefan Koehler; oracle-l_at_freelists.org Subject: Re: [OffTopic] Curiosity about vision of the future for dba oracle ...

Hi Stefan,

Replies in-line.

On 11/11/2017 03:18 AM, Stefan Koehler wrote:
> Hey Mladen,
>
>> Cloud makes it easy to just add more memory and CPU and not bother with trifle things like optimizing your SQL for performance.
> Just out of curiosity - How can adding more memory or CPU help you with SQLs that ....
>
> 1) ... spent most time on logical I/O due to inefficient exec plans
> (single thread)
> 2) ... spent most time on parsing (single thread)
> 3) ... spent most time on sorting due to inefficient exec plans
> (single thread)
> 4) ... spent most time on hashing/looping due to inefficient exec
> plans (single thread)
> 5) ... etc.

It will give you more resources to execute other stuff, therefore making the crisis less critical.

>
> I thought that we already overcame the mindset of solving a
> software/SQL problem with hardware ;-)
Define "we"? You are talking to a guy who has spent most of his 33 years long career as an Oracle DBA and is fairly adept at tuning. On the other end are management types who have never abandoned throwing hardware as a solution. Hardware vendors and now cloud vendors have always been promoting this approach.

>
> Best Regards
> Stefan Koehler
>
> Independent Oracle performance consultant and researcher
> Website: http://www.soocs.de
> Twitter: _at_OracleSK
>
>> Mladen Gogala hat am 11. November 2017 um 02:30 geschrieben:
>>
>> Oracle 18c is a long time away. It will be at least 3-4 years until
>> you see the first ones in production. DBA job is dead now, not
>> because of the smart databases, but because of DBaaS stuff and cloud in general.
>> Cloud makes it easy to just add more memory and CPU and not bother
>> with trifle things like optimizing your SQL for performance. With
>> RDS, you don't even need to do backup. However, job of a SME is not
>> dead, it only requires a different set of skills. The IT technology
>> is still not at the level that would eliminate need for
>> professionals. However, the DBA job itself is dead, just like the job
>> of a saddle maker. If you want to make a career decision, being an Oracle DBA is not a good one.
Regards

--
Mladen Gogala
Database Consultant
Tel: (347) 321-1217

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