Today is going to be an uphill battle against the forces of evil, and they've captured some of my co-workers. *sigh*
Yesterday, it was announced in a department meeting that we are standardizing on an Oracle database platform. This means Oracle will be used for our inhouse database server (cost: approaching $25,000 over time). We'll be rolling out personal copies of Oracle to our Piper people for them to take with them on laptops. And this means we will be rooting for the installation of Oracle software in all of our client's offices for use with our software.
Did I mention it means we're be using Oracle for our inhouse database server? Yes, I think I did. Did I mention who will be responsible for maintaining it? Nope, I didn't. And neither did my manager. So I asked him.
Me: Who is going to be responsible fo Senior Technical Developer: Evil Laugh. You! Me: maintaining the Oracle database? Department Manager: (Senior Technical Developer) and I decided that you would be responsible. Me: Uh, I don't want to.
Me? An Oracle DBA? That's the worst job ever! Come on, you all know it, especially those of you who are Oracle DBAs. My manager told me that if I absolutely refused, I would be pardoned from the job, but that leaves him in a tight spot. Myself, I'm a programmer. I have a lot of experience doing database programming, and database administration for PostgreSQL running on a UNIX machine. This does not make me qualified to administer an Oracle database running on Windows 2000 Server.
Well, I left my manager an e-mail yesterday saying that I'd be willing to take on the job, as long as it doesn't consume too much of my programming time. So, I'll do it, but if it becomes too large of a job, I want out. This morning I'm going to make my last (of many) pitches to use PostgreSQL rather than Oracle. I figure we can use Postgres for our inhouse database, purchase one named user license of Oracle for development, and a few for our Piper guys to take on their laptops. That way, we know we support both (which we want to do anyways, since choice is good), using ODBC it shouldn't be tough. The company saves money, and I'll gladly administrate the PostgreSQL database. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
An uphill battle. Against Oracle's marketing, Oracle's market dominance, and everyone's prejudice against Free Software. The goal: saving my company money, time, and effort, and providing them with a more flexible database solution (afterall, we have the source...). The enemy wants to spend more money, and they have it all.