As Published In September/October 2012

COMMUNITY: Peer-to-Peer

Immersion Learning

Peers use their blogs to communicate, educate, and rate past issues of Oracle Magazine. 

David Ricardo

Peer Specs Company: Condominio de Soluções, an IT firm specializing in business intelligence tools Job title/description: Senior database administrator and junior application administrator, working as part of a team focused on Oracle technologies Location: São Bernardo do Campo, Brazil Oracle credentials: Oracle Certified Associate (Oracle Database 10g), Oracle Certified Professional (Oracle Database 10g, Oracle Database 11g), Oracle Certified Expert (Oracle Database SQL, Oracle Real Application Clusters), with 10 years of experience using Oracle products Oracle ACE

Which Oracle technologies are you currently finding most valuable? My team relies on the convenience of virtualized environments to ensure greater use of big hardware. Currently we’re working hard in Oracle VM 3.0, developing architectures using Oracle JRockit Release 28, Oracle Real Application Clusters 10g and 11g, and Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g. We always follow best practices, and we’ve seen excellent results.

What advice do you have about getting into database and application development? I’d encourage both businesses and professionals to explore applications oriented to the virtual world. Now is the time to invest in cloud computing, especially hybrid clouds and ways to promote quick end-user access to them.

How are you using social media in your work? I use my blog as a communications channel, maintain a group within Facebook for DBAs in São Paulo, and use Twitter to stay current on new trends among my fellow Oracle ACEs and within the Oracle community in general.
 

Brendan Tierney

Peer Specs Company: Dublin Institute of Technology, a university in Ireland with one of Europe’s largest schools of computing Job title/description: Lecturer, DBA, and consultant, handling database administration and consulting work and giving postgraduate lectures on data mining and advanced databases Location: Dublin, Ireland Length of time using Oracle products: More than 20 years Oracle ACE

What’s your favorite tool on the job? Oracle SQL Developer is one of my favorite tools, and I’m pleased that it now comes with Oracle Data Miner. I use Oracle SQL Developer to explore data and gain a thorough understanding of it, and to perform all data manipulations. Now that the two tools have been integrated, my toolset is a lot simpler.

You’ve taken Oracle University (OU) classes in the past. What led you to do this? I’ve taken OU classes when I’ve been changing job roles or when there’s been a major new release. More recently I’ve taught a few courses, including a new two-day Oracle Data Miner course—one of the first presentations of this class worldwide.

How are you using social media in your work? I blog and use Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. At the moment, my blog has three main purposes: to share insights and how-tos about Oracle Data Miner and Oracle R Enterprise; to share my reviews of Oracle Magazine, which I’ve been collecting for more than 20 years; and to share ideas about data mining, data analytics, and predictive analytics.
 

Zeeshan Baig

Peer Specs Company: Northwestern Memorial Hospital, an academic medical center Job title/description: Senior software developer, responsible for in-house development in Oracle Application Development Framework and Oracle WebCenter Location: Chicago, Illinois Oracle credentials: Oracle Certified DBA (Oracle8, Oracle8i, Oracle Database 10g), with 12 years of experience using Oracle products Oracle ACE

How did you get started in IT? Accidentally! During my college vacations in the late ’90s I took some courses on computer basics, and I began to hear all about the Y2K hype. I learned that Oracle databases store date data with the complete year and time, which eliminates the Y2K issue. During a Microsoft Office course, my instructor—who also taught classes on FoxPro and Oracle technologies—suggested that I go with Oracle technology as a potential career. From that day on, I’ve never looked back.

What advice do you have about getting into application development? Oracle Technology Network is a great learning resource—just download software, read the documentation, and get your hands on it. I also advise starting a blog; it helps to spread knowledge and organize your own learning.

What’s your go-to Oracle reference book these days? Oracle Fusion Middleware’s documentation is my daily newspaper. I read it that often—always on my iPad.

How are you using social media in your work? I tweet, blog, and maintain a YouTube Oracle Fusion Middleware tutorial channel.

Learn more about the Oracle ACE Program.