As Published In March/April 2004

Tinkering, Tuning, and Trekking
By Blair Campbell

DBAs discuss attention to detail, developing with Statspack, and visiting the Gomukh glacier.

Martin Ganserer
Using Oracle Database, you've developed an application called DEAL

Peer Specs Company: Kontron, a market-leading producer of embedded technology Job Title/Description: Software and database developer Location: Deggendorf, Germany Length of time using Oracle products: Four years

(Database for Engineering and Logistics) to monitor Kontron's global part and product inventory. Tell us more about it. DEAL's features include part specification patterns, mapping of different part numbers, management of part and product revisions, an online notification system, a document management system, integration of three different enterprise resource planning systems and their logistic data via XML, and an Oracle PL/SQL Web application. To develop this application quickly, I first developed a framework to build database objects and programming packages automatically, which reduced development time and as well as the number of bugs.

What technology has most changed your life? In my professional life, working with object-oriented programming and relational databases has had the most impact.

What advice do you have about getting into Web and database development? In my case, I needed a good book to learn the fundamentals and some tools to play around with. But, without taking on a professional project, it's very hard to resist dodging the detail problems that are really necessary to improve your knowledge.

Alexey Danchenkov
How did you get started in IT?

Peer Specs Company: Leaves Inc., a software engineering company Job Title/Description: Principal Oracle DBA, also handling customer support and Statspack Viewer software design and development Location: St. Petersburg, Russia Oracle Credentials: Oracle-certified DBA (Oracle7, Oracle8, Oracle8i, and Oracle9i), with more than 10 years of experience using Oracle products Published Article: "Advanced Usage of DBMS_PIPE Package in Application Development," Oracle Magazine, Russian edition, March 1997

After I got my master's degree in computer science in 1995 from St. Petersburg State University of Aerospace Instrumentation, I started work as an Oracle database administrator at Leaves Inc. After that, I worked for several years as a principal Oracle DBA at a large telecommunications company, where I managed very large database and billing systems.

Tell us about your work with Statspack Viewer utilities. I enjoy using the Oracle Statspack utility when tuning Oracle databases, and I've developed several advanced tools to facilitate the task of analyzing the performance data gathered by Statspack [see www.statsviewer.narod.ru/ for more information]. Many Oracle DBAs use my tools in their day-to-day work.

Are you looking forward to any new features in Oracle Database 10g? I'm very impressed by a new feature called Automatic Database Diagnostic Monitor (ADDM), built into the Oracle database kernel. This will give DBAs powerful new techniques for analyzing and tuning.

Sanjay Kumar Ray
If you could change a feature of Oracle Database, what would it be? I would introduce the scatter/gather function of FoxBase into Oracle Database. This feature allows a record of a database table to be transformed into a one-dimensional PL/SQL array.

What is your current project at Cochlear Limited? I've been contracted to do development work for a project that involves interfacing

Peer Specs Company: Cochlear Limited, a manufacturer of cochlear implants for hearing performance Job Title/Description: Oracle applications technical consultant Location: Sydney, Australia Length of time using Oracle products: Nine years

between Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11.5.8 applications and in-house global clinical database and internet-centric environment applications on Oracle9i Release 9.2. I'm designing and building a solution for online synchronization using Advanced Queueing, database triggers, and standard application-programming interfaces, following an insert or update in either of the two systems.

What's your favorite thing to do outside of work? I like mathematical literature. I just finished reading Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, by Douglas Hofstadter.

Do you have a favorite vacation spot? I've gone trekking with my friends from university to the Gomukh glacier—the source of the River Ganges—and beyond.