Has anyone here been both an Oracle and SQL Server DBA?

If so, is the role different based on the platform? More stress/ hours in
one than the other? Is the work a lot different between the two? Which did
you enjoy more? Why?
TIA, ChrisRI have not been both, but I have worked as a data architect in both.
Oracle DBAs are generally specialist. They tend to specialize in a
specific area of Oracle. If Oracle is in Unix, which in the corporate
arena, is all you will see, there will be DBAs that specialize in shell
scripting. Others will specialize in PL/SQL. Others in backup and
maintenance. In the SQL Server world, the DBA does it all because it
is not near as complex as Oracle has made it.
Having worked with both databases, I can say that SQL Server is much
easier to work with than Oracle. But, I also have worked with SQL
Server since 3.21 and Oracle since 8i. So many more years with SQL
Server.
ChrisR wrote:
> If so, is the role different based on the platform? More stress/ hours in
> one than the other? Is the work a lot different between the two? Which did
> you enjoy more? Why?
> TIA, ChrisR|||I was an Informix DBA for 15 years (and SQL Server for 1) and have known a
couple Oracle DBA's.
Oracle is much more complicated to admin that SQL Server, or Informix.
However, that shouldn't have anything to do with stress level. However, since
there are usually several Oracle DBA's to 1, or 2 SQL Server DBA's they tend
to know less about what is happening (big picture) which may lead to greater
stress. I havn't see it, but could be.
"ChrisR" wrote:
> If so, is the role different based on the platform? More stress/ hours in
> one than the other? Is the work a lot different between the two? Which did
> you enjoy more? Why?
> TIA, ChrisR
>
>|||ChrisR wrote:
I've been both an Oracle DBA and a Microsoft SQL Server DBA.
> If so, is the role different based on the platform?
No. The roles aren't different based upon the platform. They're different
based upon whether you're a production DBA or a development DBA. As a
production DBA, you're responsible for high availability, security,
performance tuning, business continuity, data migrations, and so on. As a
development DBA, you're still the caretaker of the database, but you're also
often responsible for designing the architecture of new databases, helping
application developers with code, and so on. If you're a development DBA,
you'd better be an excellent coder because everyone comes to you when their
code doesn't work.
> More stress/ hours in
> one than the other?
Although Oracle is more complex, I had less stress and overtime as an Oracle
DBA. All the Oracle instances were designed for high availability. A lot
more money and effort went into the Oracle platform than the SQL Server
platform, and it showed. The Oracle platform was rock solid, and most of the
Oracle servers had been running continuously for three to six years. Not so
with SQL Server. Nearly every time a patch came out from Microsoft for
either the Windows servers or SQL Server, we'd have to reboot afterwards.
Oracle and Unix are designed so that installing patches doesn't require a
reboot except in the most extreme circumstances. And an ill-designed query
by inexperienced users could bring SQL Server 7 or 2000 to its knees, but
Oracle 7, 8i, or 9i kept chugging along.
The keys to having the least amount of stress and overtime as a DBA are
training, planning, and preparation.
> Is the work a lot different between the two?
You're the caretaker for the organization's data. You have a lot of
responsibility on your shoulders, whether as a SQL Server DBA or an Oracle
DBA. Oracle is more complex, so requires more training and OJT to reach the
level of "experienced." SQL Server is designed to work right out of the box
and requires less work administering, but the most recent versions of Oracle
are designed such that one could install it using the default settings and
get an Oracle instance up and running with almost no training. However,
using all the defaults will lead to performance problems and inevitable
disasters for the inexperienced Oracle DBA.
> Which did
> you enjoy more? Why?
I thoroughly enjoyed both of them, but probably Oracle a little more. With
Oracle I worked side by side with Oracle DBA's with 15 to 25 years experience,
so any problem that erupted had an expert who had an instant solution to fix
it. Excellent training ground for new DBA's, as I was at the time. I
learned lots of new things every day with Oracle, but I learned new things
every day with SQL Server, too. The SQL Server DBA's I learned from had
between 1 and four years experience, so they didn't go into the same depth as
the DBA's with decades of experience. SQL Server was more exciting because
more things went wrong. (It wasn't on as robust a platform as our Oracle
instances.)
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