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Oracle DBA Job Responsibilities
Oracle Tips by Burleson Consulting |
Now that we are entering the decade of server consolidation, we see a
changing role for the Oracle DBA.
Winner of the
"It's Not My Job" award |
In the past, with dozens of Oracle DBA staff,
important tasks were overlooked because "It's not my job". The
changing technology is changing all of this, and the 21st Century
DBA will have more overall responsibility for the whole operation
of their Oracle database.
The move towards server consolidation requires less DBA staff
and shifting job duties as a DBA must manage dozens of instances
on a single server.
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The trend that will make this possible include these technology
improvements:
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Oracle server consolidation
Server consolidation technology can greatly reduce the number of
Oracle database servers.
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Centralized DBA management
A single server means a single copy of the Oracle software. Plus,
the operating system controls resource allocation and the server
will automatically balance the demands of many Oracle instances for
processing cycles and RAM resources. Of course, the Oracle DBA still
maintains control and can dedicate Oracle instances to a single CPU
(processor affinity) or adjust the CPU dispatching priority (the
UNIX nice command) of important Oracle tasks.
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Transparent high availability
If a CPU fails, the monolithic server can re-assign the processing
without interruption. This is a more affordable and far simpler
solution than Real Applications Clusters or Oracle9i Data Guard,
either of which requires duplicate servers.
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Scalability Using a
single large server, additional CPU and RAM can be seamlessly added
for increased performance.
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Reduced DBA workload By
consolidating server resources, the DBA has fewer servers to manage
and need not be concerned with outgrowing their server.
So, what does this mean to the
Oracle DBA? Clearly, less time will be spent installing and
maintaining multiple copies of Oracle, and this will free-up time for
the DBA to pursue more advanced tasks such as SQL tuning and database
performance optimization.
But the sad reality of server
consolidation is that thousands of mediocre Oracle DBAs will loose
their jobs to this trend. The best DBAs will continue to find work,
but DBAs who were used for the repetitive tasks of installing upgrades
on hundreds on small servers will be displaced.
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