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Apress.Expert.Oracle.Database.Architecture.9i.and.10g.Programming.Techniques.and.Solutions.Sep.2005

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46<br />

CHAPTER 1 ■ DEVELOPING SUCCESSFUL ORACLE APPLICATIONS<br />

issues” to deal with without having poor performance be the first thing users experience.<br />

Users are expecting a few bugs from a new application, but don’t make users wait a painfully<br />

long time for them to appear onscreen.<br />

The DBA–Developer Relationship<br />

It’s certainly true that the most successful information systems are based on a symbiotic relationship<br />

between the DBA <strong>and</strong> the application developer. In this section, I want to give a<br />

developer’s perspective on the division of work between developer <strong>and</strong> DBA (assuming that<br />

every serious development effort has a DBA team).<br />

As a developer, you should not necessarily have to know how to install <strong>and</strong> configure<br />

the software. That should be the role of the DBA <strong>and</strong> perhaps the system administrator (SA).<br />

Setting up <strong>Oracle</strong> Net, getting the listener going, configuring the shared server, enabling connection<br />

pooling, installing the database, creating the database, <strong>and</strong> so on—these are functions<br />

I place in the h<strong>and</strong>s of the DBA/SA.<br />

In general, a developer should not have to know how to tune the OS. I myself generally<br />

leave this task to the SAs for the system. As a software developer for database applications,<br />

you will need to be competent in use of your OS of choice, but you shouldn’t expect to have<br />

to tune it.<br />

The single largest DBA responsibility is database recovery. Note I did not say “backup,” I<br />

said “recovery,” <strong>and</strong> I would claim that this is the sole responsibility of the DBA. Underst<strong>and</strong>ing<br />

how rollback <strong>and</strong> redo work—yes, that is something a developer has to know. Knowing<br />

how to perform a tablespace point-in-time recovery is something a developer can skip over.<br />

Knowing that you can do it might come in h<strong>and</strong>y, but actually having to do it—no.<br />

Tuning at the database instance level <strong>and</strong> figuring out what the optimum PGA_AGGREGATE_<br />

TARGET should be is typically the job of the DBA (<strong>and</strong> the database is quite willing <strong>and</strong> able to<br />

assist them in determining the correct figure). There are exceptional cases where a developer<br />

might need to change some setting for a session, but at the database level, the DBA is responsible<br />

for that. A typical database supports more than just a single developer’s application. Only<br />

the DBA who supports all of the applications can make the right decision.<br />

Allocating space <strong>and</strong> managing the files is the job of the DBA. Developers will contribute<br />

their estimations for space (how much they feel they will need), but the DBA/SA will take care<br />

of the rest.<br />

Basically, developers do not need to know how to run the database. They need to know<br />

how to run in the database. The developer <strong>and</strong> the DBA will work together on different pieces<br />

of the same puzzle. The DBA will be visiting you, the developer, when your queries are consuming<br />

too many resources, <strong>and</strong> you’ll be visiting the DBA when you cannot figure out how to<br />

make the system go any faster (that’s when instance tuning can be done, when the application<br />

is fully tuned).<br />

These tasks will all vary by environment, but I would like to think that there is a division of<br />

labor. A good developer is usually a very bad DBA, <strong>and</strong> vice versa. They are two different skill<br />

sets, two different mind-sets, <strong>and</strong> two different personalities, in my opinion. People naturally<br />

gravitate toward the job they enjoy doing most, <strong>and</strong> subsequently get better <strong>and</strong> better at it.<br />

It is not that they are necessarily bad at one of the jobs as much as they are better at the other<br />

because they enjoy it more. As for me, I consider myself more of a developer with lots of DBA<br />

opinions. I enjoy the development aspects of the job, but I also like to work “in the server”<br />

(which has sharpened my application-tuning capabilities, where the low-hanging fruit is<br />

always to be found).

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