Thanks everyone for their responses. Oracle-L has been valuable, I read a
lot on here and post only occasionally. I will try to post more. Chris I
agree with your list. Twitter has been great to follow certain people in
the community and finding their blogs or others that they retweet about.
I've been to Collaborate a few times but sometimes that is just too big.
Local conferences and Oracle users groups have disappeared in Southern
California unfortunately.
Seems like it might be common for DBA's to be thrown in with no one to look
up to for help. Sounds like I just need to more of what I am doing and ask
more questions.
On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 8:49 AM Chris Taylor <
christopherdtaylor1994@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'll chime in here as well.
Ask TONS of questions. Always be asking questions. Oracle-L is a
god-send in some ways because it's fairly tight-knit and respectful of
others - even if the questions seem "simple". If you have a question ask
it. Or send someone an email off list asking follow-up questions about
something you're interested in being discussed if you don't feel
comfortable replying to the whole list.
I think the fact you're on Oracle-L shows an immense level of capability
by just being involved here. Below are some recommendations and places
where I go for 'mentoring' today:
- Oracle-L
- Twitter (individuals and then read subjects they write about if they
blog)
- Youtube (to some degree - hit or miss)
- Oracle Communities (RARELY use because it can be toxic)
- GOOGLE (lots of Google)
- DBI Blogs (Franck Pachot though he recently left DBI I believe)
- Community DBAs (if you're near a local user group: check here:
https://community.oracle.com/community/usergroups and
http://www.ioug.org/rugs)
- Goto Conferences (specifically IOUG, RMOUG and other USER group
conferences in place of OpenWorld etc)
Chris
On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 9:34 AM Tim Gorman <tim.evdbt@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I was a PRO*C/OCI, PL/SQL, and SQL developer (i.e. SQL*Forms, etc)
working for Oracle consulting when my customer fired their entire IT
department in one day. This all happened immediately after the events
chronicled in my chapter in "Tales Of The Oak Table: Oracle Insights
<https://www.amazon.com/Oracle-Insights-Tales-Oak-Table/dp/1590593871>",
which is reprinted (with permission from Apress) online HERE
<https://www.red-gate.com/simple-talk/opinion/opinion-pieces/bad-carma/>.
I was moved into the role of DBA, and that very first day, the production
database started crashing, and I brought it back up twice. The third time
it crashed, it stayed down because of media failure. I had to call Iron
Mountain to retrieve the backup tapes, and when they returned the
lockboxes, nobody could find the key, so I had to jimmy the boxes open with
a hammer and screwdriver. We restored production, but were unable to roll
forward to the point-in-time of failure due to a missing archived log
file. After production was back up and running, we ran out of space and I
discovered that we were almost completely out of disk, so I unmirrored all
of the raw logical volumes underlying the index tablespaces in order to
create new logical volumes, mirrored to table tablespaces and unmirrored
for index tablespaces. Then I went home to sleep. I was the DBA for 10
months until the company completed the process of migrating their
mission-critical application from the custom-built Oracle-based application
(i.e. VISION from the book chapter) to a much-older RMS-based VT100
application on VMS. At one point, the previous DBA returned to visit
colleagues, and when he heard that I had brought the database back online 3
times my first day, ending with an incomplete recovery, he called me an
idiot because "he should have left it down after the first crash and gotten
those disks fixed", an assessment with which I cannot argue. As an Oracle
employee, I had the resources of my colleagues and the company, including
an internal email list called HELPKERN. I met people on HELPKERN with whom
I am still in contact today, and it was because of HELPKERN that I joined
ORACLE-L when I left Oracle in 1998.
The collective expertise on HELPKERN and then ORACLE-L has been my mentor.
On 8/22/18 06:33, Sheehan, Jeremy wrote:
I went from Super PC Technician to Junior DBA at my previous company. I
had a mentor for about 6 months then he jumped ship at the first sign of
trouble in the company. That left me to fend for myself for about 2 years.
I learned a little from him, but most of what I learned I had to learn
myself. Fortunately, I moved companies and was placed on a team where I had
a number of people that I could ask questions, but never got any real kind
of mentoring. I’ve got 10+ years of experience now, but still feel kind of
shaky on certain topics.
Thanks,
Jeremy
*From:* oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
<oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> *On Behalf Of *Jeff Chirco
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 21, 2018 3:51 PM
*To:* oracle-l-freelist <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> <oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*Subject:* dba mentor
CAUTION - EXTERNAL EMAIL
Did any of you have a mentor to help you along your DBA career path?
Someone to coach you on what is right/wrong, offer advice for various
projects, etc… I was the first DBA for my company and never had someone to
go to for advice and such. I learned completely on the job besides going
to some classes at the beginning and a couple conferences recently. And
then some consultants over the years. I’ve always reported to a
Programming manager, and they understand some of the job but not everything
that needs to be done. Although I have been a DBA for over 10 years I feel
there is still a ton for me to learn and be better at. I was alone for many
years and did a lot of database development in addition to DBA duties. Kind
of a jack of all trades expert at none. I am a lead now, we have one other
DBA and maybe a third in the near future, but I know I can be a better
leader and hope to advance that further.
Did any of you have some kind of mentor during your career? For most of
you it probably was someone inside the company but what about outside? How
did you find this person and was it helpful? What did they do for you?
Another other details or advice?
Thanks,
