My view on DBA

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A DBA should know the database theory deeply.

Knowing much more is less useful than knowing some things deeply.

Mastering the fundamental knowledge is very important.

I interviewed some of DBA candidate. Some of them said they had many years’ experience but when asked what is instance what is database they can not tell clearly. It is hard to image that they said they were familiar with the RAC.

Every DBA has the boundary of database knowledge even though he had learned all the knowledge. Their memory is limited, the knowledge will be forgotten if they have no chance to be applied in the real situation and it is almost impossible to have the chance to apply all in the real environment.

So I never think it is fair to ask a DBA how to set an implicit parameter in the dbms_repair package. What can be proven even he did know it? But instead that you can resolve the issue if you understand what is rootcause correctly even you do not know how to take the specific actions.

Surfing the details from the internet is possible to give you right next steps.

The OS knowledge and Cluster knowledge is very useful for a DBA.

These skill sets help you more qualified to the current or future position. Anyone who has worked as a DBA would know that the Database is usually "guilty until proven innocent." Every performance problem gets blamed on the database regardless of its true source cause or not.
So it is necessary for a DBA to know enough OS and network knowledge. Especially to combine them with database knowledge to solve the database performance problems or sometimes OS or network problems.

Does it sound scared?

Too many things need you to learn?

I do not think so.

The most important is to learn the basic knowledge then learn to what is it.

We need not to focus on how to do it too much.

As long as what is it what can it bring to us.

When the new releases come we should try to know what is it then when we need to use it we can find the details about it.

We can keep up with it if we only focus what it is.

Reaching every detail is wasting you valuable time unless you can find chance to apply it.