Transcript How Are The Challenges Different for Internet DBAs?

How Are The Challenges Different
for Internet DBAs?
Roger Schrag
Database Specialists, Inc.
www.dbspecialists.com
Today’s Session
• Introduction (a little about the author)
• Technology challenges facing
internet DBAs
• Other challenges
My Background
• Application developer at Oracle Corporation
• Oracle DBA at Fortune 500 companies
• Oracle DBA at internet startup
• Internet DBA consultant
• Manage team of internet DBAs
Technology Challenges
Facing Internet DBAs
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Development tools
Educating others
24 by 7 operation
Reads vs. writes
Development and test environments
Backups and fault tolerance
Scalability
Budgets
Development Tools
• Cross-platform languages
– Perl, Java, C, C++
• Proprietary languages (grudgingly)
– PL/SQL
• Application framework products
– Net Dynamics, Cold Fusion, Dynamo
Where are the Oracle
tools?
You mean
Oracle offers
more than just a
database?
Internet DBA as Educator
• Native SQL functionality
– “How do I prevent my query from returning
duplicate rows?”
• Avoid re-inventing the wheel
– “So you think I should use a GROUP BY clause
instead of writing my own sort routine in Perl?”
• Design principles
– “Why should I declare a primary key constraint
when I can just create an index instead?”
True 24 by 7 Operation
• Dynamic instance parameters
– ALTER SYSTEM SET <parameter> = <value>
• Avoid free space fragmentation
– Uniform extent sizes are a winner
• Anticipate future needs
– “We want to run in archivelog mode soon, but we
haven’t thought about how to manage the
archived redo logs.”
• Think outside the box
– “Can we move the temporary tablespace to the
new RAID set without taking the site offline?”
Reads vs. Writes
• Many internet databases are practically read-only
• Some are write intensive
• Read vs. write behavior impacts configuration
decisions
– SGA component sizes
– Redo log placement
– Use of RAID
– Backup and recovery strategies
Development and Test Environments
• “So you think we should have a separate
database for development?”
• “Why shouldn’t the entire development team
know the production DBA password?”
• Volume testing and capacity planning are
challenging!
– Number of users unknown
– Don’t know how people will use the application
– Difficulty simulating randomness of human
behavior
Backups and Fault Tolerance
• Often a back burner project
– “We must always be up.”
– “We have a script that exports the database once
a week. Isn’t that good enough?”
• Standby databases
– Minimal down time
– Not an extra cost “option”
– 8i standby databases can be used for reporting too
Backups and Fault Tolerance
(continued)
• Oracle Parallel Server
– Licensing costs
– Added complexity
– “Server pinging” performance problems
prior to 8i
Scalability
• From proof-of-concept to millions of hits
per day
• Transitioning from a few folks with an idea
to a household name
• “So do you think you could port our
application from MySQL to Oracle…
today?”
Budgets
• Funded projects vs. the not-so-funded
• Oracle licenses cost $$$$
– You can’t leverage the Oracle technology if you
can’t pay for it
– “Say, why don’t you just write us some PL/SQL
to push data around so we don’t have to buy the
Enterprise Edition of Oracle?”
• Fighting fires caused by lack of budget
– Squeezing out a few more bytes of storage
– Compensating for undertrained staff
Other Challenges Facing
Internet DBAs
• Corporate culture
• Work environment
• Staff turnover
Corporate Culture
• This is a cool place to work
– Ping pong, foosball, nerf paraphernalia
– All the soda and junk food you can eat
• Power to the people
– “We’ll move our weekly team meeting from
10:00 to 11:00, because most folks seem to
have trouble getting in by 10:00.”
– “Survey results are in. The theme for all new
server names will be serial killers.”
Corporate Culture
(continued)
• Smart people enjoy learning
– Designating one developer as DBA
– “How hard could this stuff be?”
– Lack of perceived value of experienced DBAs
The Work Environment
• Physical space
– Crowded due to budget or explosive growth
– Eclectic, or just plain weird
• Internet time
– Plan for next week, not for next month or year
– Analysis and design go out the window
– “Our test plan? We put it in production and see what
happens.”
– Constant change of direction
• Flexibility and agility are key
The Staff Revolving Door
• The folks who designed the system are long
gone
• Documentation: obsolete or non-existent
• Staff can be hard to get a hold of
– Virtual employees
– Working from home
– Flex time
The Internet Is Changing Everything…
…Even for DBAs
• Technical issues
• Work issues
• The pace of change
Contact Information
Roger Schrag
[email protected]
http://www.dbspecialists.com
Database Specialists, Inc.
388 Market Street, Suite 400
San Francisco, CA 94111
415-344-0500