My Mother used to write poems and rhymes. She had so much fun at it that we kids used to have the most elaborate rhyming clues to finding Easter treats and small toys each year, Easter started to get a little out of hand just so my Mom could practice her poetic skills, (not that we kids minded! :)) I thought I would have some fun with rhyming, but I think I’m closer to Cat in the Hat than Keats or Byron… 🙂 If there were no developers, I would be so bored, Just ask them, they say DBA’s appreciate…
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I used to collect comic books when I was a kid, so superheroes are close and dear to my heart, but just not as crazy about the expectation that technical support experts be held to the expecation of infallible like Superman. I’ve both experienced and have discussed with other technical folks regarding this situation that, as of late and in all common sense, just doesn’t make any sense in the technical world. I’ve nicknamed this technical environment situation the “Superman Conundrum”. In my history I’ve *survived* three companies who’ve treated their technical environment in this manner. This is the kind of company where hardware, software, applications and processes fail on…
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As busy as I am these days, I am seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, (no, it’s not a train!) We have a new DBA training that is doing bang up job and I do believe there is some lull in the demands of our busy season. As a database administrator, I’m happiest when I have a number of demanding tasks, along with mysteries to challenge me that often, the business isn’t even aware of the level of importance it is to having resolved until I’ve implemented the resolution and they have reaped the benefits. I have two solid…
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This question seems to pop into my mind consistently over the years as a DBA. I’m a “build it right or don’t build it at all” kind of DBA, but due to my gift for finding problems and fixing them, I find myself more and more often performing the second build on processes/procedures/designs, which I often would like to avoid. I went through this repeatedly at a previous shop and it’s still fresh in my mind, even today… Don’t get me wrong- I think it’s a noble cause when you first come into a new shop and it’s either been neglected or didn’t…
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I’ve started working on my abstract to submit for RMOUG 2011. I want to present on some of the CBO challenges I’ve taken on in the last year with large data sets. There are a number of tricks that could be very useful to others in how to manipulate the CBO to work with tables over 100G in size. Many of these tricks were requirements in areas where there have been small design flaws that “confused” the CBO and are very challenging for any DBA. I would also like to go into the steps I take to ensure that I am completely…
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A little off technical topic and (hopefully) in good humor, I want to talk about DBA crushes. Most techies have them, but as a female DBA, I can refer to them as “crushes” without anyone taking too much offense to the term, (hey, I’m after these guys for their technically brilliant minds, mind you!) I’m sure some folks may bristle with the term, but we do have a tendency to follow certain “super stars” in the technical world like most people follow rock stars in the real world! I’ve read DBA and Developer, consistently gush over Tom Kyte and Jonathan…
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Oblivious as I am at times, just realized how difficult it might be for anyone looking for my RMOUG presentation and white paper! Here’s the links to my uploaded docs, instead of just having them in comments in a post! 🙂 http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B8JpTBjeGkOsMzk1NzBjYjAtOWE5ZS00ZGMzLWFkMDMtMDExNDI4ZjgzZWI5&hl=en http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B8JpTBjeGkOsN2RmYTcyNWMtMjkzZi00MTQ2LTk1NWUtMzg0MDAzZjgyMjRk&hl=en Thanks, Kellyn
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I attended, (and presented) at RMOUG this year and although it wasn’t as much of a “class reunion” as I expect, (seeing everyone that I’ve worked with at previous companies) I still did meet up with some previous coworkers and met some really great new DBA’s and Developers. It may just have been me, but I decided with the recession, attendance was down and I just need to help and promote it more along with everyone else! 🙂 My presentation was on parallel execution and no one seemed to notice it was my first presentation- which is a good sign.…
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I’ve found myself “whining” in the middle of an Oracle Freelist email conversations in regards to patching- or the actual need to patch. As a DBA, I have a love/hate relationship with patching. I love that if there is a bug in a version of Oracle, I can simply log into Metalink, (or My Oracle Support or MOS, what else are we calling it these days? :)) look up the error, verify with the documentation or with Oracle’s support and apply the patch- Yay me! Why am I hatin’ on the patch? My strong feelings are towards the CPU and PSU patching. …
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I’ve decided it’s probably a good thing that blogspot doesn’t show the *exact* time I publish my posts… 🙂 I rarely write or publish anything before 10pm at night and have been saddened as I’ve become aware, (as I am a perfectionist at heart…) that I’ve made a couple mistakes in my blog. My ADD brain has either raced faster than my fingers could keep up on the keyboard, (meaning clarity of technical facts are just not there when I’ve read through a post later on) or I’ve edited an example script where the actual output wouldn’t have resulted in the error that…
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As I’ve spent two “tours of duty” as a Lead DBA in my career, I often keep in mind what makes a great DBA team, noting both when companies realize what it takes and when they don’t. I’ve watched great DBA’s walk out the door because during the interview process someone decided the candidate didn’t have the EXACT skills of another DBA or they just weren’t sure what they were looking for due to the fact that the DBA role can have such a wide range of skill demands when the manager really needed to look at what skill were…
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So I’ve been accepted to present at the 2010 RMOUG Conference and I am understandably nervous. This is my first large presentation I’ve given and I’m thrilled to be doing it. My topic is the power of parallel processing, something I’ve been working heavily in as of late and I feel I have a lot to offer on the subject matter. I’ve already written and submitted my abstract, now comes the daunting task of putting together a presentation that is beneficial and that everyone can follow,(vs. how my ADHD brain works, running rampant from one aspect of the challenging subject…