I've seen many a DBA in my years it seems. I've
done technical interviews over the phone and in person. I've
been introduced to the DBA staff at many a client site, moving
from cube to cube trying to remember names and faces (I'm
terrible at names). As a consultant, it seems to me that it's
very important to quickly size up the DBA's you will be working
with. So, I ask the question, how do you tell a good DBA?
Now, as a consultant, I can't go around giving formal technical
interviews. I am not sure this would go over that well....
Me: "Hello Mr. X, I have to work with your group and I need
to figure out who the good DBA's are and who the idiots are."
Not making friends there.... I kind of pondered on this, and I
think I have a subjective set of criteria I use to make some
rather rapid decisions. It's not perfect, but it works a good
deal of the time:
1. How many books do they have, how worn are they, and
WHAT books do they have?
- No books, bad news. You are in a managers office.
- If the cube is filled with a bunch of 10 year old C books on
the book shelves that are dog-eared, but few if any Oracle
books, I'm in trouble.
- If the cube is filled with a bunch of new Oracle books on
bookshelves that look like they have never been touched, you are
probably in trouble.
- If the cube is filled with only a few, well worn, carefully
chosen titles on the bookshelf, you are probably in very good
company (but beware, you might have a neat freak on your hands).
- If the cube is filled with only a few, well worn, carefully
chosen titles scattered all over the place, with paper hanging
out of them, dog eared and well used, hey, this is a DBA I can
work with!
- If the cube is filled with only a few, well worn, carefully
chosen titles scattered all over the place, with paper hanging
out of them, dog eared and well used, and there are stacks of
printed MOSC notes, even better!
2. What does the DBA talk about when you meet him?
- Ok, if the DBA spends more than 2 minutes talking hobbies or
his last vacation.... all wonderful topics, when you sit down to
talk, be worried.
- If, after a couple of minutes the DBA says, "Hey my hit ratio
is 98.9%, how do I make it 99%"... You might have a problem.
- If, after a couple of minutes the DBA says, Hey, here is a
document on all of our instances, he's probably a good DBA.
- If, after a couple of minutes the DBA is demonstrating the
HTMLDB application he made that interfaces with the Oracle SGA
to produce performance reports without interfering with Oracle
itself..... it's time to be scared of this DBA. :-)
3. What is the DBA's response to your request for access
- If the DBA's response is: OK, I'll fill out the paperwork and
it will take a week.... Well that just simply means you are
working at a fortune 50 company that will be going bankrupt in
the next 10 years or so.
- If the DBA's response is: Ok, normally it takes a week but
I'll take it down and handle it myself so it's done today. This
is a *good* DBA most likely, or he knows he's going to be able
to shovel off his work on you. One of the two is probably true.
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