How to Become an Oracle DBA As you start out on your journey to become a proficient Oracle DBA, you have many sources of information on the Oracle database: • Oracle Database 11g database administration classes, which have now been boiled down to a pair of five-day long classes • Oracle manuals—an entire library of which are available on the Oracle web sites • Books from various publishers that impart the various pieces of knowledge you need to become an accomplished Oracle DBA You’ll also need to acquire the necessary operating system knowledge. Most of the large Oracle databases are based. | xliv INTRODUCTION How to Become an Oracle DBA As you start out on your journey to become a proficient Oracle DBA you have many sources of information on the Oracle database Oracle Database 11g database administration classes which have now been boiled down to a pair of five-day long classes Oracle manuals an entire library of which are available on the Oracle web sites Books from various publishers that impart the various pieces of knowledge you need to become an accomplished Oracle DBA You ll also need to acquire the necessary operating system knowledge. Most of the large Oracle databases are based on the UNIX or Linux operating system so you ll need to have a reasonably good understanding of UNIX. Again you have many sources of information available. You can attend a class or two from the leading UNIX system vendors such as Hewlett-Packard and Sun Microsystems you can read the manuals or you can buy some books. Microsoft Windows is another popular operating system for Oracle databases so you need to have a basic understanding of the Windows Server operating system as well. As many of the new entrants to the Oracle Database 11g field find out the Oracle DBA world is exhilarating but alas it s also exhaustive in its reach and scope. It isn t uncommon for DBAs to have an entire shelf full of books all explaining various facets of the DBA profession modeling books UNIX texts DBA handbooks backup and recovery guides performance-tuning manuals and networking and troubleshooting books. The amazing thing is even after you run through the whole gauntlet of courses and books you aren t really assured of being fully prepared to handle complex day-to-day database administration chores. There are many people who have taken all the requisite classes to become an Oracle DBA who won t or can t be competent Oracle DBAs based solely on their training. The reason Refer back to that quotation from Shakespeare at the beginning of this introduction you need to separate the grain from
