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> It doesn't work in only one direction. While jobs are bieng lost to cheaper > labor markets, Indian companies now have to compete with frighteningly > efficient > giants like Nike, Coca Cola, IBM, Microsoft, GM, Union Carbide and others. On IT? I thought we were talking about that? > even with all our PHB's and damagement. How messed up is everybody else? The You do NOT want to know, believe me... > non-aggressive gentleman from India. Lawyers do need a killer instinct, DBAs > do Well, one of my colleagues likes to call me the "bad cop". He calls himself the "worse cop". He reckons we do the act to perfection! ;) On the other hand: the BAs that work with me quietly leave the room when I'm in one of my "low-sugar" days. Let's just say you're not the only big fella: I'm well over 200 myself and most of it is the stuff that can slam a golf ball 300 yards away... :D But anyways, I'm not just a DBA anymore and that's what I wanted to talk about. > Here is our chance. > Hmmm, all serious now. It's been obvious for years that being just a DBA doesn't cut it any longer. The traditional day-to-day operation of the VAST majority of databases does NOT warrant full employment of a DBA. Note: I am NOT saying that a super-DBA isn't needed. I'm saying that the vast majority of sites does NOT need one. Which leaves a VERY small market for "supers" or "masters". Now, markets being what they are and the fact that Indians are a lot more than others except Chinese, dictates that for the vast majority of sites out there a junior DBA qualification is MORE than enough. Or even an outsourced one. (there is NOTHING demeaning to Indians or Chinese in what I just said. So please, spare me the usual "offended Surat or Wong" crap. I work with Chinese and Indians and every single one of them knows EXACTLY what I think about this and no one is offended by it: on the contrary. Glad we cleared that. Let's move on.) And it has NOTHING to do with the version of Oracle or how automatic it is, as much as it may pain Larry and his upgrade cycles. You can make V7.3 as reliable and not needing maintenance as you will 10g and there is nothing Larry can do about that. It all depends on what the system is and what the requirements are. I know of a Peoplesoft HR site that has been running a 7.3 server on NT4 for 8 years without missing a beat. Anyone wants to discuss value for money in this case? What I suggest to other DBAs here is based on my own experience in bridging the gap to do other things. Two simple key words: spread out. One strategy: capitalise on your strengths. Don't waste too long learning the intricacies of all those X$ views: you are NOT Steve Adams nor do you have his motivations and conditions. And your employer doesn't give a royal freakin damn if X$* are performance monitoring views or porn monitoring views. By all means learn about their existence. And read about them. But STOP RIGHT THERE. Besides if you are truly going to take any advantage of all that jazz, you'll need access to the application code itself. So you can re-design certain aspects and make them behave properly. Don't fool yourself: just exactly how many times have you succeeded in doing that with SAP OR JDE OR Peoplesoft? Or even that small third party J2EE crap that eats up CPU at a rate that makes Microsoft blush? See what I mean? It helps if your employer is a software house, but they are a MINORITY. Forget it. Of course we all like to argue and talk here about details of obscure waits, setting event 1009812398901283948 forever on level 8127348 and checking the effect of that on X$MXYZPTLK. However, that has its place and time. The problem is: if you do that on your company's place and time and you can't come up at the end of it with a tangible and LARGE improvement in profitability (stuff the performance, profit is where it's at!), you are toast in the eyes of your boss. And with good reason: you are an expensive overhead and a pretentious git who thinks he's a Steve Adams. Sorry to be brutal. I warned I AM nasty, so there! :D Take it from someone who was a "DBA-only" 7 years ago, folks: change. Now. Cheers Nuno Souto [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Nuno Souto INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services --------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (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).
