My name is Phil and I am an Oracle and recently MongoDB DBA. I started recording these stories on an internal Wiki in an attempt to help the more junior DBAs that I work with to understand how I investigate database problems. I hope that means using a scientific approach, rather than trying some things and seeing if they work. Most of the problems I investigate are performance related as that is my speciality, but I investigate all types of database problems.
Unfortunately these stories don’t read like a Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett novel, but if you care to think of me as a kind of Philip Marlowe of the database world, I am not going to complain. But there are no stories of the mean streets, whiskey fuelled late nights or Dames that smell “the way the Taj Mahal looks by moonlight”. However, hopefully you may find the stories of some use.
I can’t promise to update this site regularly as the really juicy and therefore interesting problems don’t happen regularly. However I will add them as and when they occur.