My 10 commandments of Database administration ... Anyone want to add to this? 1. Thou shalt backup thy database. 2. Thou shalt test thy database backup, often. 3. Thou shalt remove as many single points of failure as possible. 4. Thou shalt not assume anything. 5. Thou shalt not use version x.0.0 of anything. 6. Thou shalt not assume a 99.999% buffer hit ratio is a good thing. 7. Thou shalt not add hardware, when fixing the application code/SQL will fix the problem. 8. Thou shalt not allow the user to have DBA privilges. 9. Thou shall document everything. 10. Thou shalt monitor ORACLE-L, read with abandon and imerse thyself in all that is Oracle. and my personal 11th commandment 11. Thou shalt use RMAN, and buy all of Robert Freemans books. Cheers, Robert -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l