Off topic advice about Database Administration

Rails
1

Can anyone give me advice on which certification is more important in
the marketplace–MySQL DBA or Microsoft’s DBA? I’d prefer MySQL just
because I use that with more with Rails and Microsoft’s certification
seems to be a complete mess–I can’t make heads or tails of which
exams they want.

I know this is off topic–but does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Thanks,

Ron

2

On Sun, Jul 06, 2008 at 05:58:47PM -0700, Ron wrote:

Can anyone give me advice on which certification is more important in
the marketplace–MySQL DBA or Microsoft’s DBA? I’d prefer MySQL just
because I use that with more with Rails and Microsoft’s certification
seems to be a complete mess–I can’t make heads or tails of which
exams they want.

I know this is off topic–but does anyone have any thoughts on this?

MySQL is a craptastic RDBMS to begin with, though it’s fine for Rails
object persistence needs. MS SQL server is decent, but tied to MS
platforms. If you want to get a DBA certificate, go for Oracle or DB2.

On the other hand, and I say this with all due respect, if you can
seriously consider a certification as a MySQL DBA you don’t know enough
about relational databases to be a DBA in the first place.

Thanks,
Ron
–Greg

3

Greg,

Thanks for the info…I’m a developer first and foremost. I’m working
on a project that will require a large, high performance database. So
I want to start learning about database administration and pick up
some skills along the way.

Are there some books you would recommend for me to get started?
Something that would give me the background necessary to know that My-
SQL isn’t good?

Thanks,

Ron

On Jul 6, 7:29 pm, Gregory S. [email protected]

4

On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 2:18 PM, Ron [email protected] wrote:

Thanks for the info…I’m a developer first and foremost. I’m working
on a project that will require a large, high performance database. So
I want to start learning about database administration and pick up
some skills along the way.
Are there some books you would recommend for me to get started?
Something that would give me the background necessary to know that My-
SQL isn’t good?

If you are a developer first and foremost, I would go with PostgreSQL.

Postgres is really a fully featured database. It compares with Oracle
or MS SQLServer in it’s functionality and speed and really takes the
cake for it’s accessibility. All the docs are online and free and
easy to get to and the community is great and thriving.

Don’t get me wrong, Oracle has it’s place and I use it as well. It is
definitely the king in the DB world. But I found that my postgres
knowledge allowed me to pickup oracle very very quickly. SQLServer
was a piece of cake after Postgres.

The other nice thing about Postgres is that it is the only real RDBMS
that is supported by Rails out of the box. Which makes it really easy
to start off with.

To start learning SQL, I would recommend a site that I just went over
in one of my blog posts “Know your Fundamentals”, you can find the
article I refer to here SQL for Web Nerds

Regards

Mikel

–

Rails, RSpec and Life blog…

5

On Mon, Jul 07, 2008 at 04:01:49PM +1000, Mikel L. wrote:

If you are a developer first and foremost, I would go with PostgreSQL.
[much accurate praise for PostgreSQL]

I will second that PostgreSQL is an excellent database. I don’t know of
a
certification for it, however, and I’m fairly sure that anyone looking
for
a PostgreSQL DBA will not care about certifications.

To start learning SQL, I would recommend a site that I just went over
in one of my blog posts “Know your Fundamentals”, you can find the
article I refer to here SQL for Web Nerds

Good resource. I’m also fond of the textbook we used in my databases
course
in college: C. J. Date’s “An Introduction to Database Systems”
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Database-Systems-C-Date/dp/0201385902

Regards
Mikel
–Greg

6

Been watching this thread with interest, being a database person first
and
foremost.

I’m not from IBM but would strongly recommend DB2 (on Linux) for your
database needs. Check out the lack of limitations on the free (as in
beer) DB2 Express-C : IBM Db2 | IBM

I’ve built a number of (as you describe) large high performance
databases
using DB2. The DB2 support for Rails is good, and getting better all
the
time. I gave a presentation on a recent project of mine at IDUG
(International DB2 Users Group) in May : you can download this from -

http://scotdb.com/downloads.php
1!
As far as getting good performance is concerned, it is critical that
you
learn about good database design techniques. A number of books on
the
subject exist and if you want recommendations drop me a line (I’m in a
web
cafe at the moment, so can’t give you titles and ISBNs).

If the design is good, the next thing you want to do is learn how to
exploit your DBMS using both SQL and extra functionality. For
example,
if you are doing a lot of XML handling then in DB2 you’d learn
pureXML /
XPath / XQuery.

And (waiting for screams from Rails purists) learn when using stored
procedures will give you a performance boost !!!

HTH

Phil
([email protected])

On Jul 7, 1:57 pm, Gregory S. [email protected]