University student looking for some guidance on how to learn oracle.

[plaguepoop]

I am currently in my junior year of university and I want to get myself familiar with oracle before graduating. My major is management information systems.
The problem is, however, that I don't know anything about databases yet.

So, what Im here to ask is, what should I be learning in order to be able to understand/play with oracle?

From what I understand, I need some knowledge of object oriented programming and SQL. So, should i first learn SQL and then Java, and then start oracle? Or some other path?

Thanks in advance.

[vnktummala]

Welcome to DBA world !!!

To learn Oracle Database Administration, you don't need to learn Java. First you need to understand the RDBMS concepts. Once you are good in concepts and start practicing you will get familiar with writing basic SQL statements which is good to start with.

You can download complete Oracle RDBMS documentation here for free. You can also download RDBMS software from here and Install in your laptop for free (education purpose only).

All the best.

Thanks,

[plaguepoop]

Thank you very much for the response! I am exploring on the website and Ive noticed a few versions of oracle I can download (11g, 10g, 9g). Which would be most beneficial from an educational standpoint? Do all businesses that use oracle always upgrade to the latest version?

Ive seen the terms PL/SQL a lot when researching oracle. Is this something that I will learn eventually by using oracle, or would it be best to specifically learn SQL or PL/SQL?

[vnktummala]

You can download 11GR2 version which is latest.

When ever the supports ends for one version it is always recommended to upgrade to the latest version. However, you always need to apply one-off / interim / CPU patches to the databases to keep them secure.

I suggest don't go into deep. There is a good chance to get confused. Start with concepts then move forward slowly.

SQL is structured query language which you might eventually learn while learning and working on Oracle database. PL/SQL is a programming language which you need to learn separately. In real world very few DBAs does PL/SQL programming.

Thanks,