New Technology
The increasing popularity of the Internet has resulted in a number of new technologies becoming prominent. Internet projects are generally not able to reuse existing code bases, and transforming a traditional business to an e-business often requires that components be built from scratch. As the Internet and e-businesses mature, this situation will probably change, but for now, expertise for these new domain initiatives is scarce. Traditional Oracle DBAs don't have a problem with understanding Oracle and how it's used. However, they're not necessarily up to speed with other new technologies that may be used in an e-business:
Java, C++, and Perl are popular programming languages.
Cold Fusion and Net Dynamics are popular application framework products.
IBM WebSphere is a popular application server.
It can be a big challenge for Oracle DBAs who are transforming their skills for the Internet world to quickly become knowledgeable in these other technologies as well.
On the other side of the coin, web developers don't necessarily have Oracle knowledge, and they're not familiar with what Oracle can provide. Developers generally try to find solutions to problems by using something familiar, instead of learning new things. For example:
C++ is commonly used by developers to implement a least-recently-used (LRU) cache management code. However, it's not necessary to use application cache if Oracle technology is used; a better alternative is to use the components of the Oracle Shared Global Area (SGA), such as the buffer and library caches.
Web developers prefer solutions based on Java or C++ because they don't have sufficient SQL or PL/SQL knowledge.
An iDBA has to take the initiative in educating the rest of the team in Oracle technology and explaining the power and flexibility of using Oracle technology:
Tight integration of PL/SQL with the database
Efficient execution of stored procedures in the database server address space
Capabilities of the Java Virtual Machine
Security mechanisms provided by Oracle
Configuration options available with Oracle