Opinions Please (Oracle DBA)

[JasonGS]

I am thinking about dishing out the $5,000 for oracle dba courses as well as the prometric-administered certification tests, and one thing I am wondering is... will it do me any good?

I see all the course-sites say you'll make alot of money, and of course the people that run the courses say that, but is it true? I guess I'm looking for someone who is a certified oracle dba to say "I MAKE 6 FIGURES!", but I would just be happy to hear other peoples input on the matter (people who don't want my $5,000 for their courses).

Anyone's would be appreciated!

[honeybee]

I never was an Oracle DBA in the true sense, but we did a small project in VB-Oracle and therefore I had to get knowledge of some DBA functions.

Before paying for the course of Oracle DBA, you will be better off to check if there is any market for Oracle DBAs. Here on this forum, you seldom come across a question on Oracle. Most of them are using SQL server.

Another thing is if you can spare the time and energy, getting a good book and practising yourself could be a nice idea, and save you a lot of money, too. Get hold of a book, check out its contents and you will come to know if you can do it on your own.

Well, I am no expert, but just felt like giving advice. Hope it helps.

[JasonGS]

Thanks alot for your reply...

I already know a large bit of oracle, but if you search Dice for instance for "Oracle Administrator", you'll find a metric butt-load of jobs paying high 5, to 6 digit salaries for just *Certified* Oracle DBA Admins. I think the small amount of Oracle questions on this board is due to the fact that SQL Server is the prevailent db server choice on windows because it's super easy compared to Oracle, but when you get into enterprise (hundreds or thousands of users), I know for a fact that SQL server does not perform as well as a well-tuned oracle machine.

What I am wondering is if I get the Oracle Cert., will it pay off in regards to spending all the money for even the tests alone which are $625!???

[honeybee]

I am afraid I can't give any sound advice on this matter. But if you can skip the course and just take the exams and are confident of passing, then you can go for it. Perhaps you can even appear for one exam at a time, and not take all exams at once (Frankly I don't even know how many exams are there for an Oracle DBA, so pardon me for my ignorance.) It also depends on how much you are earning presently and how much you can spare. If $600-$700 is not a big amount for you, you can study with the books and just appear for the exams instead of paying huge fees for courses.

[Clunietp]

I think that you won't be wasting your time, that you should go for it, assuming you have living $$ while you learn.

There is definitely a big Oracle market out there, but your next employer will be cautious about hiring you, in fear of you being a "paper DBA" (similar to the "paper MCSE" issue). If this is the case, you might have to accept a low paying job for a few years and work your way up.

If you can accept this and gain valuable experience along the way, I don't see why you can't be making 6 figures in 8-10 years (or sooner). Despite Ellison's flakiness, Oracle isn't going away anytime soon