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Oracle DBA job Duties
Don Burleson
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See these important related notes on how to get an
Oracle
DBA job and how to
become a Oracle DBA guru and how Oracle DBA jobs will be
different in the
year
2020.
As the primary manager and custodian of the data resource the
Oracle DBA has many job duties. Many of the duties of the Oracle
DBA have been clouded by the explosive growth in Oracle servers during
the 1990's, when UNIX minicomputers caused IT shops to have hundreds
of Oracle servers, each with their own instance, and copy of the
Oracle software.
Historically the senior Oracle DBA had total responsibility for the
Oracle database and had the following job duties:
- Oracle DBA job duty: Install, patch and maintain all
Oracle software
- Oracle DBA job duty: Tune all Oracle instance components
including SQL and PL/SQL
- Oracle DBA job duty: Approve all production schema changes
- Oracle DBA job duty: Approve changes to database design
- Oracle DBA job duty: Control all migrations of Oracle
schema objects
- Oracle DBA job duty: Design and implement a backup &
recovery system
- Oracle DBA job duty: Implement Oracle failover technology
Remember, in many shops the Oracle DBA is a senior manager with
high responsibilities and specialized job duties.
The Changing Role of the Oracle DBA
In the late 20th century, shops had dozens of
Oracle DBA staff and important tasks were still overlooked because
DBAs said “It’s not my job,” or “I don’t have time.” Changing
technology mandated that the 21st century DBA would have more
overall responsibility for the whole operation of their Oracle
database.
Winner of the “It’s Not My Job” award
So, what did this mean to the Oracle DBA of the
early 21st century? Clearly, less time was spent installing and
maintaining multiple copies of Oracle, and this freed-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 was that thousands of
mediocre Oracle DBAs lost their jobs to this trend. The best DBAs
continued to find work, but DBAs who were used for the repetitive
tasks of installing upgrades on hundreds of small servers were
displaced:
The changing dynamics of human and hardware costs
The surviving Oracle DBAs found that they were relieved of the
tedium of applying patches to multiple servers, constantly
re-allocating server resources with Oracle Grid control, and
constantly monitoring and tuning multiple systems. The DBA job role
became far more demanding, and many companies started to view the
DBA as a technical management position, encompassing far more
responsibility than the traditional DBA.
New Oracle DBA job duties
Consequently, many computer professionals and Oracle DBAs were
faced with a new requirement to have degrees in both computer
science and business administration. The business administration
allowed them to understand the working of internal systems and
helped them to design the corporate database.
By 2005, the automation of many of the Oracle DBA functions led to
the Oracle professional accepting responsibility for a whole new set
of duties:
- Data modeling and Oracle database design
- Data interface protocols
- Managing data security
- Managing development projects
- Predicting future Oracle trends for hardware usage and user
load
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