Comments on: Data Architect career path

By: oracledba1

oracledba1 — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 04:26:35 +0000

Hi,

I’m a data architect coming from a DBA background and was lucky enough to get on the job training. But I’d suggest some of the Oracle courses … expensive but generally good e.g. “Data modelling and Relational Database Design” 4 day course or they also run a Oracle 9i Designer class for a week but that’s specific to their own design tool.

My experience over the last few years is that it actually seems quite easy at first but the longer you do it the more complexities you see. Probably the best advice is to try and join a company that implements proper data modelling and try and learn in context.

I also agree with the other comments saying you should learn about storage so you can talk techie as well as business.

Good luck with it!
L

By: solutions1

solutions1 — Thu, 24 Feb 2005 08:34:15 +0000

For a “classic” view the http://www.dmreview.com/ is a good web site and http://www.dama.org is a group you might join. “Classic” tends to be synonymous with “relational.”

Note that there is a “post-classic” data architect role – primarily focused on XML (eXtensible Markup Language)and on process modeling (BPEL, UML). The modeling world has more to do with shaping data, while reporting is more about Business Intelligence and exploiting it.

By: mkevlar

mkevlar — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 22:30:07 +0000

I am a Senior Developer on the cutting edge of VoIP technology. I am also the Database Architect for the company. Here is my advice.

If you have a home PC get a copy of SQL server 2000. And practice upsizing those access databases. Learn Access VBA as a first programming lanuage there are plenty of books I recommend “Access …. Developers Handbook’s” by sybex Their code is exellent.

Most important: Find a pet project to start building and learning with. Applied skills are priceless.

Good luck

By: guguru

guguru — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 09:03:00 +0000

Thank you so much for your advice, I really appreciate it as this is really helpful. It makes it easier for me to know what training path to follow.

By: me

me — Wed, 23 Feb 2005 08:15:27 +0000

I would also suggest you learn about: hardware; raid levels; SAN; business continuity; backup & recovery; basic advantages / disadvantages of different operating systems / file systems…..

I’ve been working in storage related fields for 20 years and the biggest problem in this shop is a lack of data requirements. Think / monitor / report along lines of a service level agreement. Peak & avg throughput, availability, file level backup & recovery, archive, file size, directory structure, optimal blocking……….

We have storage admins, servers admins, DBAs and a few specialists – you need to be able to talk with all of these people.