And my husband drags me out of the lurker category again... :)
I've always been primarily Oracle and SQL Server with a smattering of other
platforms thrown in, (5 yrs of MySQL, 2 yrs of Sybase, etc...) but it was
Oracle's technology that pulled me in its direction in the past, driving me
with my passion to understand and to be part of the solution and the love
of the Oracle community. With the introduction of the cloud and now the
autonomous database, I found that their has been an unintentional
alienation of the DBA. As a woman in tech, I probably didn't need anymore
alienating, but many in the Oracle community have realized this and I
appreciate their support to bring the DBA back, recognizing that it takes a
village.
Microsoft already went through this alienation back around MSSQL 2000 and
learned from that mistake. They've embraced their DBAs and slowly
transitioned to the Microsoft Data Platform, migrating their DBAs into a
technical role that grew with Azure. The community is more inclusive and
it's not just an eyeball count to the age difference- I need to have data
if I'm going to stand a chance in a discussion, so I ask a lot of
questions. Yes, on average the folks are about 10 years younger and
they're always supporting new speakers and sponsoring each other in the
community. This has lead to a more diverse and younger group
contributing. Expertise is more widely dispersed and they communicate at a
level that I have trouble keeping up with. They are more likely to use
Twitter, slack and newer technologies, but it's also lead to growth in the
Microsoft platform, too. The optimizer for MSSQL is at, what I would call,
a sweet spot for a DBA like myself. The introduction of the query store
and latest optimizer features are an incredible advantage, offering
incredible information, just enough automation, but still enough control
that stability is more often the result. On the analytics front, Power BI
is an astounding product offering everyone the opportunity to take
advantage the value of their data- no matter the source with just a few
clicks of a button or a query.
I still love Oracle, but I also believe in what Microsoft is doing with the
Microsoft Data Platform and love the community. I also know that when you
manage both, you need to really understand the architecture and design
differences or your expertise can become a liability.
Long live Oracle and Microsoft! OK, PostgreSQL and AWS and Google, too.
I'm the last one to pick sides.
Kellyn
[image: Kellyn Pot'Vin on about.me]
*Kellyn Pot'Vin-Gorman*
DBAKevlar Blog <http://dbakevlar.com>
President Rocky Mtn. Oracle User Group <http://www.rmoug.org/>
President Denver SQL Server User Group <http://denversql.org/>
about.me/dbakevlar
On Thu, Mar 15, 2018 at 9:08 AM, Jamey Johnston <jj@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I can echo what Tim is saying as a cross pollinator myself!
- jbj2
---------------------------------------------
Jamey Johnston
@STATCowboy
STATCowboy.com
jj@xxxxxxxxxx
*From: *Tim Gorman <tim.evdbt@xxxxxxxxx>
*Sent: *Thursday, March 15, 2018 9:58 AM
*To: *oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject: *From ORACLE-L to DATABASE-L?
So, of course, I ask *Oracle* people about it. :)
This thread is a good argument for expanding ORACLE-L to DATABASE-L.
There is a vibrant technical community in SQL Server and it is long past
time that these communities cross-pollinated better.
As this thread shows, it isn't that one or the other DBMS is better, but
they can be different in subtle ways which can trip up even the most
experienced of us.
And, as this thread shows, many of us are tasked with administering both
DBMS packages, in addition to PostgreSQL and MySQL.
I'm proud to cite my wife, Kellyn <http://dbakevlar.com/>, as an example
of this breed of renaissance geek, as she is currently president of both
the Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group <http://rmoug.org> and of the Denver
SQL Server users group <http://denversql.org>, and she is likely soon to
become the first person in the world to achieve both Oracle ACE Director
(now alumnae) and Microsoft MVP recognition.
One noticeable difference between the two communities is age. On average,
Kellyn and I find attendees at SQL Server users group events to be about 10
years younger than Oracle users group events, based on unscientific eyeball
observation. Also, the SQL Server users group community has a much larger
percentage of women attendees and speakers (i.e. about 40% for SQL to about
20% for Oracle).
As a result, while the ORACLE-L list has been yakking along happily here
on email for the past 20 years, the SQL Server community has been largely
conversing on Twitter. Both communities blog at about the same rate and
volume (in my opinion), and both communities seem to use LinkedIn to the
same degree (in my opinion). So, the biggest difference in online
communication style seems to be email vs tweets.
So, if we were to go through the effort of changing from ORACLE-L to
DATABASE-L (leaving aliases from ORACLE-L to point to DATABASE-L so folks
can still find us), we would find adoption by the SQL Server community to
be slow, because they would have a struggle paying attention to, and
responding to, a high-volume email list. There are undoubtedly good ways
to integrate email and Twitter, and I'm sure they can be quite seamless,
but the first question is: what do y'all think?
How do you personally feel about discussing and learning about SQL Server
as well as Oracle? Would it enhance your prospects?
On 3/15/18 07:23, Rich J wrote:
On 2018/03/15 07:34, Jeff Smith wrote:
Brent is a friend and an ex-coworker. He wanted to share the background of
this customer's scenario, in case it would help you with yours.
I let Brent know some folks were having...fun...with his take on
autocommit.
Jeff
*Heh heh heh, I can only imagine. The difference on optimistic vs
pessimistic concurrency nailed it though - the default combo of optimistic
& implicit transactions makes sense in Oracle, and the default of
pessimistic and automatic transactions makes sense in SQL Server. It's when
you change only one of those two settings that you're screwed.*
*The blog post stemmed from an app that had been written by SQL Server
people, and then an Oracle guy came in and made a few changes. He switched
to implicit transactions without understanding that everybody was doing
single-line inserts/updates all over the place in code, not bothering to
set transactions. He didn't understand the impact of what he was doing.
(Not an Oracle jab by any means - the guy was well-meaning but just not
prepared.)*
*We got called in because performance went straight into the toilet. Even
worse, rollbacks were rolling back completely unrelated transactions, and
nobody knew why, hahaha*.
Ah, that context adds a lot to the assertion. I still disagree that
autocommit is a good practice for applications, whether it's Oracle or SQL
Server, but I understand where Brent's coming from.
And my intent wasn't to have "fun", but a sanity check for myself. IT
changes constantly outside of my narrow focus, and as I've been following
Brent's blog for years, that entry offers an opinion that is completely
backwards of my understanding of how any modern RDBMS should work.
So, of course, I ask *Oracle* people about it. :)
Thanks all for the sanity check!
Rich
