The bigger danger is hiring an *Oracle* Financials or *Oracle* Manufacturing person to become a DBA because they have 'Oracle' on their resume This is the most comprehensive analysis of DBA requirements I have seen thus far For myself I'm not tied to any specific Database having worked in mySQL and Postgres this year but I do lean towards Oracle as I know it has the raw horsepower to accomplish distributed transactions in their entire suite of DB Product offerings (also I was an Oracle DBA in years past) The questions on a DBA should add 1)what is a cluster 2)what is a borken chain? 3)when are Btree indexes used 4)Tell me how to performance optimise a multiple condition predicate using the principles of boolean logic Thanks Greg Martin-- ----- Original Message ----- Wrom: DDJBLVLMHAALPTCXLYRWTQTIPWIGYOKSTTZ To: "Kevin Hunter" <hunteke@xxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: "Postgres General List" <pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Sunday, November 04, 2007 4:18 AM Subject: Re: What makes a Postgres DBA? > On Sun, 4 Nov 2007, Kevin Hunter wrote: > > > Am I assuming too much already by not defining what a DBA is in general? > > Probably. I'd startby looking at the list of DBA duties at > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_administrator and considering which > of those are database-specific for a second. > > Two examples of the extremes here. "Installation" is a very product based > thing. I assure that even if you can know everything in the world about > how to install every other type of database system, you might still fail > miserably to bring a new Oracle system up. On the opposite side, most of > the work for "data modeling" is very similiar for any SQL-based database. > > I like to think of this as a grid. Across the top I put the various tasks > DBAs work on. Vertically I go from generic to specific knowledge at > various levels. Consider the task of deleting data from a table. I'd > classify understanding of that subject like this: > > -generic new DBA: can use DELETE properly > -experienced DBA: understands how dead rows get left behind by deletes > -generic expert DBA: can comment on whether the expected balance of > insert vs. delete operations will impact the optimal B-tree fill factor > > -new PostgreSQL DBA: knows to run VACUUM to clean up dead rows > -experienced PG DBA: tunes autovacuum and monitors/adjusts the FSM > parameters to keep dead rows under control > -expert PG DBA: runs reports against pg_stattuple to instrument vacuum > > > "what do I need to able to do to be able to honestly say that 'I am a > > Postgres DBA' on my resume" > > Organizing things as above, this turns into a somewhat fuzzy question > about how much of the grid one has to cover before achieving that goal. > Consider this; who will be more effective as a PostgreSQL DBA: > > -A person with many years of large-scale DBA experience with another > database, but who just starting using PostgreSQL a few months ago > > -Someone who has been using PostgreSQL for a few years but only on small > projects > > There's understanding the breadth of this field, and there's knowing some > depth about each of the topic, and the exact mix of the two varies from > person to person. There's so many aspects to this type of work that > drawing a line and saying "if you know X, Y, and Z you can consider > yourself a Postgres DBA" doesn't make a lot of sense. You mentioned > training and certification. Part of the value of going through either of > those is that you end up with some baseline idea of what someone who has > gone through the class/test has been exposed to. > > -- > * Greg Smith gsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 9: In versions below 8.0, the planner will ignore your desire to > choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not > match > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
