How to break in the field.....

Hi Kris109,

I took your kind advice and have regsitered for the Official Oracle classes (DBA and Backup and Recovery) at the local community college. I tool SQL for Oracle last semester. Just a reality check--I mean, if you want to work with Oracle, then it doesn't make sense to learn other languages such as Visual Basic, right? I would like to focus on the PL/SQL language only.....but I do wonder about "Marketability".

I have been running Oracle 8i personal edition for several months, am reviewing the review books by Prentice-Hall and Sybex, but now need to find good STS and practice questions. Are there any sources that you can recommend? This is the only obstacle that I need to overcome in order to prepare for the tests. CBT sounds good, but my company is locked into M$, which is one reason why I want to study for a different job....

Thanks

You made the right decision. With the market as it is, you can not go wrong with oracle, in particular oracle DBA. It is good to know as many languages and platforms as possible, but with OCP, for a job, you need not learn any other language.

You can buy STS from

http://www.selftestsoftware.com/dept.asp?dept%5Fid=600&

Your colleagues in the class might have access to question banks, you can ask them (please check as unauthorized copying of software may be illegal).

There are many internet sites where you can take practice questions on oracle 8i, for example:

http://skilldrill.brainbuzz.com/Test...Administration

You can download a sample DBA test from here:

http://www.oracle.com/education/certification/

This has 20 parctice questions for each test.

[Edited by kris109 on 07-03-2001 at 04:07 PM]

Hey Hind; You may want to start learning some Unix as well since most Oracle is running on Unix. If you don't know the OS that Oracle is on you will not be a very effective DBA.
MH

I had really hoped not to have to hop on the certification treadmill again, but if that is the only way to break into the database department. It seems like a waste, since no one will care about your cert six months after starting that first database job....

By the way, I already took a Unix college class last Fall. *nix is the future, especially Oracle on *nix!

Thanx for the links.

Now a couple links for you:

http://www.mattshouse.com/

http://www.oralinux.com/

http://www.linuxtoday.com

http://www.rootprompt.org

The only other option is to be a developer first. A lot of people feel that this is mandatory to be a good DBA, I guess I'll never be a "Good" DBA.

Personally I reccomend 2 or more years on the help desk, this does wonders for your troubleshooting skills not to mention common sense.
MH

Mr. Hanky,


Great! I will have completed those two years at the helpdesk (one year is desktop support) by Christmas of this year. I have a hard time understanding how an IT manager would count this as relevant work experience when trying to break into databases. Sure, it's another IT job in a different department, making a transition from networking to programming, and it helps that I am already in the field. What reasons would you give a hiring manager if you only had helpdesk experience and Oracle certification only?

Quote:

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Originally posted by Mr.Hanky
The only other option is to be a developer first. A lot of people feel that this is mandatory to be a good DBA, I guess I'll never be a "Good" DBA.

Personally I reccomend 2 or more years on the help desk, this does wonders for your troubleshooting skills not to mention common sense.
MH

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I would say that all that experience stuff is a very relative thing. There are people who can and there are people who can't. In a previuos job as an Oracle developer, I had a colleague with more than 5 years of Oracle developing experience (PL/SQL and Forms). You cannot imagine how slowly he was doing things. Quality in Oracle programming and DBAing is very important but I prefer to see someone doing quality stuff quickly than someone doing quality stuff slowly.

I didn't give any real "reasons" per say. I was just persistant and I showed determination. I offered to intern, and I came in at the same pay rate while I get up to speed. This is all fine with me since it is what I wanted to do, experience will come in time as will all the fringe benefits that follow.

For me it took a lot of hard work, a lot of determination, and a little luck too.
MH

I have the opportunity to buy the entire Oracle 8i DBA cd set (CBT exam bundle with simulators). Since 9i is out, and the first 9i exam will probably by out by October, am I wasting my money on 8i materials? I do not want to be in the scenario where Oracle no longer offers the 8i DBA exams while I am still preparing to take them. Does anyone know when the 8i exams are scheduled to retire? Thanks.

hey! i juz cleared my last 8i OCP paper...yes certified!!
no way ORACLE gonna retire Oracle8i !!!! heehee...