On 7/27/06, *Mark Brinsmead* <pythianbrinsmead@xxxxxxxxx
<mailto:pythianbrinsmead@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Excellent advice.
You know, when I think back on the 5 or 10 biggest infrastructure
"errors" I have seen in recent years,
they all seem to have this in common: The "technical architect"
obtained most (or all) of his/her advice
and information from hardware sales reps (and usually from only
one vendor). The only exceptions I can
think of are the cases where the "technical architect" actually
*was* the hardware sales rep...
Small wonder. The technical architects are not usually experts
in storaage. That is, down to the detail level.
The problem is lack of education. The reason for that is that an
education storage management is very difficult to come by unless
you deal with it every day.
Try looking for a book that gives a concise explanation of storage
management.
There isn't one. I've looked on amazon, googled and asked the people that
would know if such a thing exists. It doesn't.
Unless the TA has such an expert in house, or knows where to find one,
there's no one else to turn to than the vendors.
Of course, when doing my own homework, I *do* look pretty closely
at vendor-supplied information.
I usually skip the brochures, though, and go straight to the spec
sheets and (when available) reference
manuals. When I feel like having fun, I do this *before* the
sales rep is invited to visit... ;-)
Those spec sheets are useless unless you know enough about storage
to interpret them, or have someone available to do so for you.
This is often dependent on the size of the company. Small to medium
size businesses do not often have the expertise necessary to understand
all the implications of different storage technologies when considered
with a specific use such as Oracle Databases. They often also do not
have sufficient resources to fully explore this in a lab environment.
Back to the vendors, once again.
--
Jared Still
Certifiable Oracle DBA and Part Time Perl Evangelist
