Immersion Learning
Peers delve into social media, virtualization, and “extreme BI” to gain insight.
JOHANNES AHRENDS
WISSEM ELKHLIFI
STEWART BRYSON
Company: CarajanDB, a tech consulting firm
specializing in Oracle solutions
Job title/description: Manager, focusing on
the development of private cloud infrastructures,
especially for Oracle databases
Location: Erftstadt (near Cologne), Germany
Length of time using Oracle products:
20 years
What’s your favorite tool or technique on
the job? The whole concept of managing
storage in a grid infrastructure with Oracle
Automatic Storage Management. With that
very reliable infrastructure, it’s much easier
to maintain an Oracle database, migrate it
to Oracle Real Application Clusters, or move
it on the fly to a new SAN [storage-area
network] box or other disk structures.
What technology has most changed your
life? I’d say first computers, next the
internet, and finally virtualization. I’ve been
working with virtualization solutions for
about four years now, and these solutions
have allowed me to easily set up Oracle Real
Application Clusters with Oracle Database
10g and Oracle Database 11 g, and to create
test databases with Oracle Data Guard and
Oracle GoldenGate. Virtualization is also
helping us help our clients to save energy.
How are you using social media in your
work life? I blog and use Twitter and
Facebook, but Xing [ xing.com, a professional
business network]—which in Germany is
more popular than LinkedIn—is my main
platform for connections to peers, looking for
contacts, and exchanging basic knowledge
through the site’s Oracle group.
Company: Motorola Mobility, a communications
corporation
Job title/description: Senior DBA, responsible
for Oracle Database installation, upgrades,
configuration, tuning, and PL/SQL development
Location: Barcelona, Spain
Oracle credentials: Oracle Certified
Professional (Oracle Database 10g) with 12 years
experience using Oracle products
What advice do you have for those just
getting into database development? I see
a lot of programmers who, after taking on
a project, start programming immediately
after reading a specification. In my opinion,
it’s better to lean back and think about the
task and the best way to approach it. Also,
take time to understand the concepts and
best-practice examples. You’ll benefit in the
long run by avoiding performance problems,
bad programming, and extensive bug-fixing.
How are you using social media in your work
life? Lately I’ve become addicted to social
media tools such as Twitter and Facebook
to connect with Oracle experts around
the globe. I’m now connected with many
experts, including Hans Forbrich, Eddie
Awad, Syed Jaffar Hussain, Kai Yu, Ben
Prusinski, and Tanel Poder.
What would you like to see Oracle, as a
company, do more of? Provide more Oracle
documentation in Spanish, French, and
German. Certainly English is the number
one IT language, but there are a lot of
DBAs—especially here in Spain—who face
difficulties understanding Oracle concepts
due to the language barrier.
Company: Rittman Mead, a technology firm
focused on Oracle business intelligence solutions
Job title/description: U.S. managing director,
overseeing projects, staff, and sales while doing
consulting and training
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Length of time using Oracle products:
15 years
How did you get started in I T? After receiving
my master’s degree in philosophy, I realized
that I needed to go out and make a living—
that I wouldn’t be able to generate a job
through a syllogism. After working at a
marketing job, I decided my best bet was to
get into technology. So I pounded the bricks
and convinced a company to give me a break
in the application support group.
Which Oracle technologies are you currently
finding most valuable? I’ve been working with
the combination of Oracle Exadata Database
Machine and Oracle Business Intelligence
Enterprise Edition 11 g, delivered with an agile
methodology. I like to call this setup “extreme
BI.” These two technologies are a natural fit in
terms of performance and functionality.
What advice do you have for those just getting
into business intelligence development?
Most developers get their feet wet with
Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise
Edition doing front-end development:
delivering analytic reports and dashboards.
I’d recommend getting started with Oracle
Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition
metadata development first. This type of
development provides a deeper respect for
what the product can really deliver.
