As Published In January/February 2004

Three peers, spanning the Americas, go wireless, open, and spatial.

Peer Specs Company: KnowledgeTech Consulting, an Oracle partner offering consulting services to oil and gas companies Job Title/Description: Lead Oracle database administrator (DBA), responsible for design and implementation of the Oracle infrastructure and support for all Oracle-related technical issues Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada Oracle Credentials: Oracle-certified DBA (Oracle8i, Oracle9i) and Oracle-certified developer (Oracle Developer Forms/Reports 6i), with nine years of experience using Oracle products

Fan Liu
You've taken many Oracle University (OU) classes. Were they helpful? The classes gave me insight into the internal workings of Oracle memory and process structure, transaction management, and data and I/O management.

Has your IT career always focused on Oracle technologies? Yes. I started in 1995 as a software developer at Bao Steel, the largest steel manufacturer in China, where we used many Oracle products. At my current company, we're using Oracle9i Database and Oracle9i Application Server to build a production-allocation system for a few industry-leading oil companies in Canada.

How do you use wireless technologies? I use wireless messaging every day to manage my databases. Most wireless-communications companies provide e-mail address mapping to cell phone numbers, which can easily be configured in Oracle Enterprise Manager for job- and event-status notifications.

Nanak Sawlani
How have you found working with Oracle on the open-source Linux

Peer Specs Company: Aventis Behring, a producer of therapeutic protein products Job Title/Description: Lead DBA, supporting Oracle databases on various platforms including UNIX, Windows, and Linux Location: King of Prussia, Pennsylvania Oracle Credentials: Oracle-certified DBA (Oracle7, Oracle8, Oracle8i, and Oracle9i), with 10 years of experience using Oracle products

operating system? It's been a very stable environment, and since it's a cost-effective solution, management is happy. We didn't have any issues with installing Oracle on Linux, and performance is just great.

What are your favorite features of Oracle9i, and what are you looking forward to with Oracle Database 10g? I enjoy working with RMAN, which is a great and very effective utility. My team recently had to recover two mission-critical databases due to a hardware failure, and RMAN was the key to faster recovery. It's changed the way we work, especially since we don't have to write or maintain scripts for backups. As we transition to Oracle Database 10g, I'm particularly looking forward to enhanced RMAN reporting, as well as automatic storage management.

How do you enjoy spending time away from the job? I enjoy walking and meditation, which helps me relieve stress. When I can take time off, I like going to Disney World with my kids.

Jose Troche
If you could change a feature of Oracle Database, what would it be? Many of our customers are interested in using the Oracle

Peer Specs Company: Open Systems Trading & Consulting (OSTC) Job Title/Description: Research-and-development lead Location: La Paz, Bolivia; temporarily on assignment in Montgomery Village, Maryland Oracle Credentials: Oracle-certified internet-application developer (Oracle Forms 6I), and Oracle-certified application developer (Oracle Developer Release 2), with six years of experience using Oracle products

Spatial option but need third-party tools to update spatial data from a GUI. Oracle's Spatial team now provides Java classes to display spatial information stored in the database, and I hope Oracle plans on extending this functionality even more.

Tell us about your current company. OSTC is the main Oracle partner in Bolivia, my home country. We offer Oracle-related services at all levels and have contributed to the expansion of Oracle technology throughout the country.

How is the technology industry doing in Bolivia? Business-process automation in a developing country is not as advanced as in developed countries, but thanks to the internet and global commerce, the technological gaps are narrowing.