As Published In July/August 2006

The Database Guys
By Blair Campbell

Whether it's synthpop, securing loans, or Swiss banks, these peers have the solution.

Peer Specs Company: McGill University, a publicly funded university offering degrees in more than 300 fields of study Job Title/Description: Web programming team lead, supervising day-to-day Web development operations Location: Montreal, Canada Length of Time Using Oracle Products: 7 years

Mikhail Seliverstov
How does your work at McGill help sustain the university's online community? My team is a part of a larger systems team in the Development, Alumni, and University Relations [DAUR] office, which keeps track of and provides services to more than 250,000 graduates, students, and donors around the world. One of our flagship projects is the Alumni Online Community, a large-scale Oracle-driven PHP application that helps fellow grads stay in touch with the university and with each other.

What technology has most changed your life? I would say PHP has had the biggest impact on the way I approach Web projects. It's very encouraging to see big IT players like Oracle and IBM giving PHP such great support these days. Backed by a solid database with advanced security features—think Oracle's Virtual Private Database, for instance—there are few things you can't accomplish.

What's your favorite pastime outside of work? In my spare time I run a little Web-based music directory [www.allsynthpop.com], which serves as an outlet for my music-related ranting, as well as a sandbox for PHP experimentation and a testing ground for the technologies I'm curious about.

Lewis Cunningham
How did you get started in IT? I started as a computer operator and got into systems programming on mainframe systems, then got into PC and client/server using dBase III Plus and became known as "the Database Guy."

You mention "business liaison" as part of your job description. What does that involve? The "business liaison" role is one thing that really

Peer Specs Company: HSBC USA, a global provider of commercial banking products and services Job Title/Description: Technical consultant, with architecture, analysis, and business liaison responsibilities Location: Brandon, Florida Oracle Credentials: Oracle-certified DBA (Oracle9i) with 13 years of experience using Oracle products

attracted me to my new job. I get to go find out what the business side feels they're missing and then hunt it down and make the right things happen. I'm in Mortgage Services, so I'm helping the people who make the calls trying to get customers to refinance, as well the ones filling out customer applications.

Now that you're using Oracle Database 10g, what new features are you finding most valuable? My favorites are dbms_output line limit removal, COMMIT NOWAIT, PL/SQL conditional compilation, and Instant Client Lite. I called Oracle8i "the Developer's Release" because they added so much to PL/SQL. I thought that was the best you could get—and then they did it again, with Oracle9i. And Oracle 10g added so many nice little things that just make life easier. I guess it's the "ease-of-use" version.

Laurent Schneider

Peer Specs Company: LC Systems Engineering AG, a systems integration firm Job Title/Description: Management system engineer, with a focus on database and grid administration Location: Zurich, Switzerland Oracle Credentials: Oracle-certified DBA (Oracle8, Oracle8i, Oracle9i, Oracle Database 10g) with five years of experience using Oracle products; first Oracle-certified master (Oracle9i) in Switzerland Oracle ACE

How has Oracle University (OU) helped you earn your various certifications? In 2001, when I first became involved with a project using Oracle Database, I took courses covering Oracle8 database administration, backup, and tuning. I passed the OCP [Oracle Certified Professional] exam the same year, and I'm hoping to do the same in 2006 with Oracle Application Server 10g. I also used Oracle University Online Learning, through Oracle PartnerNetwork, to become an Oracle9i Technical Champion.

Tell us about your grid-related responsibilities on the job. For my most recent project, at a bank in Zurich, I've been responsible for the implementation of Oracle Grid Control. I've also implemented and maintained Oracle Real Application Clusters for quite a few LC Systems customers on Solaris and Linux.

How would you sum up your approach to your work? Design, performance, and maintenance are long-term challenges—they shouldn't be regarded as "problems." I put a high value on performance and data quality.