Newbie needs advice.

[victorv]

Sorry for bothering you with such a stupid questions, but I need some advice from a real life Oracle DBAs. I am a MS SQL Server DBA for the last 5 years. Have over 10 years of IT experience. Now I want to get more into Oracle. I want to become an Oracle DBA. The thing is, we don't have an Oracle at my current job, so I have to prepare for this on my own, at home. For now, I am studying Oracle and taking certification exams. I realize, that without Oracle experience, it's going to be hard to find a job as an Oracle DBA. The questions are: should I even bother playing with Oracle on Windows platform, or in real life it's mostly UNIX ? Because it's unreal to have a commersial UNIX system to have at home (where do I get it ?), will Linux be enough ? What does Oracle DBA have to know about UNIX (Linux) ? Should I be like a UNIX administrator, or just to know enough about UNIX (Linux) to know my way around this OS ? Any other suggestions ?

 

[bookouri]

All of our Oracle databases are running on WinNT or Win2k.

 

[rtefft]

I've found that about 80-90% of the DBA's job is within Oracle, and therefore not platform specific. I would suggest getting Oracle for windows (easier) and using that as your learning tool. Once you get a handle on the Oracle part, the platform-sepcifics (Unix vs Windows etc) won't be a real big deal. Many (but not all) shops have a separate Sysadmin anyway.

Good luck!
Rich ____________________________
Rich Tefft
PL/SQL Programmer

 

[JavaBill]

Maybe you don't care to deal with operating system issues, but if you just want a "sandbox" to go play in while you are learning, you can run Oracle on Linux on a PC at home pretty cheap. The newer linux's aren't that difficult to get up and running.

 

[victorv]

Hey, guys.
Thank you for your responds. I really appreciate it. I installed Oracle on Win2K Adv. Server and also Oracle on Red Hat Linux 7.2 at home. So, now I can really practice.
The only things are left to do is to pass the rest of the OCP exams, and try to find a job as an Oracle DBA. I just hope my SQL Server experience (5 years) and my OCP certification will help me to get there...