As Published In January/February 2008

Oracle ADF, Oracle JDeveloper, and Oracle Application Server top the list for these Oracle ACEs.

Chris Ostrowski

Peer Specs Company: TUSC, an Oracle consulting firm Job title/description: Technical management consultant, responsible for maintaining a strong working knowledge of all core Oracle technologies Location: Lakewood, Colorado Oracle credentials: Oracle Certified DBA (Oracle9I), with 20 years of experience using Oracle products Oracle ACE

What's your favorite tool or technique on the job? Oracle JDeveloper combined with Oracle Application Development Framework [Oracle ADF] is a phenomenal piece of software. The latest version—10g Release 3—makes creating portlets incredibly easy. For developing sophisticated, Web-enabled, Oracle-based applications, no other tool comes close.

What would you like to see Oracle, as a company, do better? Oracle Application Server technologies are changing so fast, it's difficult for many clients to fully understand all the different versions and what's included in each. A more clearly defined road map of Oracle Application Server technologies would be invaluable.

If you were going to the International Space Station for six months and could only take one Oracle reference book, what would it be? Oracle professionals are lucky to have so many outstanding books to choose from. Kevin Loney's Oracle Database 10g: The Complete Reference gives the reader both quality and quantity.

Andrejus Baranovskis

Peer Specs Company: IBM Global Business Services, a business and technology services provider Job title/description: Technical consultant, responsible for consulting on Oracle projects, resolving development issues, and designing software architectures Location: Vilnius, Lithuania Oracle credentials: Oracle Certified DBA (Oracle Database 10g), with three years of experience using Oracle products Oracle ACE

How did you get started in IT? After earning my bachelor's degree, I joined a local company that's an Oracle Certified Advantage Partner—an IT service provider called Informacin&ering;s Technologijos. My first IT project, which involved defining database schema as well as developing SQL statements for location information management, was based on Oracle Spatial. This wasn't accidental—from very early on it was my goal to work with Oracle technology.

What advice do you have about how to get into Web and database development? If you want to be a successful developer, you shouldn't be afraid to ask questions. Although if we're talking about forums, it's highly possible that someone has already asked your question. So don't be lazy—search before you ask!

What technology has most changed your life? Oracle JDeveloper with Oracle ADF. I'm developing and posting sample applications using this technology on my blog [www.andrejusb.blogspot.com], which has helped me to become recognized in the technical community.

Jacco Landlust

Peer Specs Company: Desyde B.V., a software development company Job title/description: DBA, partially responsible for maintaining Desyde B.V.'s internal systems and all UNIX/Linux systems administration duties, as well as troubleshooting for customers Location: Deventer, the Netherlands Length of time using Oracle products: Seven years Oracle ACE

Tell us about your current project. I'm contracted out to ISC, the national information and communications technologies company for Dutch police and fire departments and other public services. My main job is to guide applications into production, so the company's local DBAs can support these applications. I'm also responsible for maintaining its high-availability environment for national services, which runs Oracle Real Application Clusters [Oracle RAC] and Oracle Application Server. I've come to have the most interest in troubleshooting application server problems.

What's your favorite tool or technique on the job? Since my main job is analyzing what's wrong with software created by others, my favorite tool is a UNIX kit. Even on Windows, I install the GNU toolkit all the time. This helps me analyze log files, debug file handles, and much more.

You've taken an Oracle University class—how was that experience? The class I took is mandatory for the DBA Oracle Certified Professional exam, but I didn't enroll for that purpose. Since all five students were experienced DBAs, we dove right into Oracle Database 10g new features and even built an Oracle RAC cluster.