Google Desktop Saves the DAY

We recently had a major outage in our shop floor systems due to a SAN Outage. The outage was due to an outdated SAN hardware and the supporting components that were not even available with the vendor when the outage happened. ETA for restoration was 3 to 4 hours.

Rewind to Feb 2005 : Our team reviewed all critical systems and provided a recommendation for replacing the SAN on the shop floor. One of the business leaders rejected the idea with a comment that went as " This is nothing but an attempt by systems group to buy some new toys.. rejected ". Why fix something thats not broken.

System is back to normal, but during the RCA phase, the CFO blasted the recently anointed manufacturing leader/SVP. The new leader walked out of the session with CFO called a meeting of the systems group and said that heads are going to roll for not taking care of this and that some one would have to pay for this in the next 24 hours.

I had been using google desktop since beta and thought that it was time to put it through the much awaited litmus test. A quick Search for "Manufacturing Proposal" pulls up the email chain where the SVP himself rejected the idea of replacing the old hardware. ... Quietly forwarded an archive of the email chain to Director of IT and rested my case and thought to myself.. "Wonder who is going to pay for this .. atleast I am not.. "

Oracle Application Express ?.. Who comes up with these names ?

Oracle recently announced that it had renamed the HTMLDB tool as Oracle Application Express. Link Here ...

Now thats confusing as hell, considering that this product has nothing to do with the Express Products or Application Server. Lets hope that this product will live longer than WebDB which got integrated into App Server in the later stages. Considering that oracle moved metalink to this, I have high hopes for the longevity of Application Express aka HTMLDB

Routine Oracle DBA ? : A rant in support of TK

I stumbled upon Tom Kyte's Rant about the people who are aiming for instant knowledge. My experience has been that "many" new entrants into the field start categorizing work as "Routine Oracle DBA" from the second day they are on the job.

Routine Work as defined by the newbies is Anything or Everything that they may have executed even if they didnt know what exactly they were doing. The trend seems to be on identifying an activity, learning the basics on the process and execution and then moving on to a newer job with additional skills added to the resume.

My org policies now dictate that every newbie is going "manual" for 3 months instead of automated Cloning and Replication Procedures. This helped some, but I dont think we as Managers or Tech Leaders can force a change in how they acuqire their knowledge.

Oh Well.. We can only take the horse to the water.. or is that a Routine Task ?

My Leap into Blogging..

Hi,

Taking a big leap from Forums to Blogs..

I am Oracle King, a 14 year DBA Veteran in the South East, that kicks himself everyday for giving up technical line and taking a leap to become a "weepy" VP of database Operations.

Here is my foray back into sharing my perspectives on Life in the techno managerial operations world. Who am I kidding .. its just another outlet for me to vent ;-)..

DBA King