The White Papers. Employing Knowledge Management for Oracle, DB2 and SQL Server. By Steve Hilker & Daniel Norwood

Transcription

1 The White Papers Employing Knowledge Management for Oracle, DB2 and SQL Server By Steve Hilker & Daniel Norwood

2 Contents Employing Knowledge Management... 3 Introduction... 3 Overview... 3 The Challenges... 3 Documenting in-house methodologies and procedures... 3 Training new hires... 4 Transferring knowledge when an employee is absent or quits... 4 Supplying on-going training for new and updated technologies... 4 Supplying current reference documentation (books, CDs, etc) for all users... 5 How to share experience between co-workers... 5 Knowledge Xpert... 5 Applying Knowledge Xpert to the process... 6 Documenting in-house methodologies and procedures:... 6 Training:... 7 Reference:... 8 Sharing Expertise:... 9 Conclusion About the Authors About Quest Software... 11

3 Employing Knowledge Management By Steve Hilker & Daniel Norwood Introduction Long before the term Information Technology was ever coined, managers were faced with the challenge of how to protect and advance their team s technical expertise and experience, i.e., knowledge. Knowledge: it s the condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience. It s this intimacy with the nuances of your systems and business that s the differentiating factor between your senior star employee and the new hire. So how do you keep this precious commodity from being lost? How do you manage something as fluid and abstract as knowledge? This paper will look at the problem areas that IT managers face and some techniques and tools to solve them. Overview So what is knowledge management? Knowledge management is a process where the goal is to captures your employee s experience, from the database and system administrators to each developer, into a system that is easy for others to benefit from such that questions are not repeated and problems are avoided rather than solved multiple times. The optimal system is extensible and flexible so that your employees will use it and not feel constrained and limited in how they wish to contribute. Unlike human beings that are sometimes sick and need vacations to rejuvenate themselves, your system must be available 24x7. The Challenges There are numerous challenges and areas that the IT director faces when trying to manage the collection and dissemination of knowledge: Documenting in-house methodologies and procedures Training new hires Transferring knowledge when an employee is absent or quits Supplying on-going training for new and updated technologies Supplying current reference documentation (books, CDs, etc) for all users How to share experience between co-workers Documenting in-house methodologies and procedures In the past, procedure documentation consisted of a hard-copy document that was performed as a one-time project. As procedures change these manuals quickly found themselves out-of-date and of little use. For some small shops in-house procedures are

4 still little more than word of mouth and simple written notes. With the advent of intranets and sophisticated publishing tools, many companies now employ some means of publishing and distributing this information. Their challenge is making this information easily accessible and relevant to the user s task. For example, when a programmer is creating a table to test a new piece of code and needs to follow the company s naming and size standards, she may have to access both the database documentation as well as the corporate intranet to accomplish this task. Training new hires Depending on the size of the company, training a new IT employee may range from sending them through a specialized training unit to working along side another employee, to here is your desk and you figure it out. Regardless of the method used, the challenge is supplying them with knowledge of the company s systems, architecture and procedures as they relate to specific tasks. For example, a newly hired DBA will not initially know the purpose of each database, if and why data files have been stripped across specific disks. Information of this type may not be documented in the in-house procedures manual and must be learned on the job. Transferring knowledge when an employee is absent or quits Building and maintaining a company s intellectual property is a key task of an IT manager. It s relatively easy these days to buy hardware and software to backup one s data, but it s a bit more difficult when that data resides in only in an employee s head. No one likes losing a key employee, but the issue is actually much larger than simply planning for an employee quitting. The IT manager must also plan coverage for key personnel vacations, sick days and any other unavailable periods. So the issue that the IT manager is faced with is how to transfer their knowledge to another. Depending on the environment, this can be a difficult and arduous task. This problem is exacerbated when trying to transfer knowledge to an entire group. Many DBAs express that they are in constant interrupt mode answering the same questions multiple times as well as being a reference source for less experienced personnel. Some senior DBAs address this issue by doing seminars and on the job training for the less experienced staff. This is a great system if you re lucky enough to have a knowledgeable and fostering mentor with time to do this. The unfortunate reality is that often the DBA is too busy with other equally important projects which doesn t help the person that s in need of an answer -- she might be an extremely competent developer and very knowledgeable of her own systems, but not have a clue as to why the DBA is not using the FIRST_ROWS hint instead of ALL_ROWS for the online system she s inherited. Supplying on-going training for new and updated technologies Technology continues to change at an ever-increasing pace. No matter how versed or how senior an employee is in their job responsibilities, when the next release of a

5 software product is released they are now behind the curve. They must be supplied training on this new version to be able to effectively perform their job. There are many philosophies and techniques for supplying training. Some will prefer classroom training; others will select CBT courses, books, seminars, or even trial and error. Regardless of the method, the employee seldom retains 100% of the material presented. Information not retained results in lost productivity searching through course materials, notes or documentation to find answers. Supplying current reference documentation (books, CDs, etc) for all users Depending upon your point of view, documentation can either be the blessing or the bane of a product. Documentation for a small utility might be easily accessible and quite informative, but searching for information in the documentation on a product as complex as the Oracle database is often a frustrating task. Simply finding the meaning of an error code can be time-consuming task because the values are scattered among numerous manuals and their location in the manuals change from release to release. How to share experience between co-workers The biggest challenge of all is how to share your employee s experience among one another. It s bad when you re unfortunate enough to have problems repeat themselves but having to also repeat finding the solution because it wasn t documented is never acceptable. But, the fact of the matter is, most shops do repeat their failures. The problem isn t isolated to just solving problems, though. You ll find in almost all IT organizations some level of duplication of effort when creating test databases and files or blocks of code that perform the same function being coded many times by different developers. These are just a couple of the examples of types of items that can significantly improve productivity if you apply knowledge management to your IT department s daily routines. Knowledge Xpert Quest Software is the industry leader in knowledge management solutions for Oracle, DB2, and SQL Server, providing products that help businesses develop and manage rapidly changing technologies. Knowledge Xpert optimizes the decision-making ability of database professionals, delivering insights, tips, and techniques to answer nearly 80% of their daily technical questions. Knowledge Xpert also supplies integrated tools to assist with the daily exercise of capturing and disseminating your IT department s collective experience. Knowledge Xpert is built on the experience of world-renowned authors and covers over 5,000 topics dealing with the tasks and challenges of Oracle, DB2, and SQL Server -- from administration and configuration management, to application design and performance tuning. Knowledge Xpert is also tightly integrated with many of Quest Software s other tools such as Quest Central, Spotlight, and TOAD.

6 Applying Knowledge Xpert to the process This section will uncover the successful management of knowledge through the use of Knowledge Xpert. Documenting in-house methodologies and procedures: Let s take a look at the Attachments feature of Knowledge Xpert. With this feature, all personnel in your group can stay well informed of the standard procedures for the department as well as benefit from a collective wealth of information in the form of white papers, etc. Let s look at how this plays out. Say you re writing an application that uses the DBMS_JOB package. You ll probably need some information on the package and you ll also need to grab the company s document on the standards for using the DBMS_JOB package -- especially if it s been modified at all. Where would you normally go for this information? Perhaps two or three places? With Knowledge Xpert, we ve integrated this process into one application. You can very easily add attachments to any topic and they ll always be right there when you need them users never need to wonder if they re missing anything. Figure 1: Knowledge Xpert topic attachments

7 These Attachments can be of any file type and there s no limit to the number that you can attach to a topic. Even remote employees and contractors can take advantage of this feature because Knowledge Xpert was designed to be used in a networked environment files placed on the fileserver are just as easily accessed from Knowledge Xpert. So, when the user needs to research using the DBMS_JOB package, they have everything they need (documentation, usage insights, and current in-house procedures) all in one place. Training: Knowledge Xpert is updated twice a year with new information to cover the latest trends and technology. The Knowledge Xpert authors come from a variety of fields and backgrounds and are among the most recognized and respected industry experts. Knowledge Xpert s content is straightforward and written in a user-friendly style for all experience levels. Content in Knowledge Xpert differs from technical manuals because an experienced DBA or developer writes it as though they were interacting with the user. Each Knowledge Xpert topic tries to anticipate all of the information that the user will need when referencing it including valuable tips, tricks, and experienced advice. This allows the experienced user to access a topic and quickly get the information they need to solve the task at hand or the trainee to access the same topic in research mode to gain an understanding of a technology new to them. When Knowledge Xpert is also extended with topic notes and attachments, the trainee can gain a full understanding of a technology as it relates to their custom corporate environment. Knowledge Xpert covers multiple versions of Oracle, DB2, or SQL Server at once so users never have to go somewhere else to find the right information. For instance, let s say you are supporting several versions of Oracle ranging from Oracle7 through Oracle9i and you wanted to recreate the controlfile for each instance for backup purposes. Typically you d have 2 or 3 manuals open on the desk as you look up this not often used command. With Knowledge Xpert, you re able to move effortlessly in and out of varying syntax versions so you can remain productive.

8 Figure 2: Knowledge Xpert showing support for multiple versions Earlier we mentioned that one of the challenges IT managers face is the ability to Supply on-going training for new & updated technology. With updates coming out twice a year, Knowledge Xpert is ready with the latest technology! Additionally, with Knowledge Xpert, your user s association of topic notes and file attachments are never lost between upgrades, so you ve always got the most important information ready to utilize. Reference: Resolving error messages is part of the daily tasks of the average DBA and developer. However, much of the trouble associated with their resolution can be eliminated. Knowledge Xpert has uniquely integrated the process of resolution and documentation into one easy process. Knowledge Xpert includes all of the error messages for Oracle and DB2 into their respective versions, which makes finding the meaning of the error message quick and painless. Knowledge Xpert then adds the ability to attach notes on the how you resolved the problem for each individual error message that eliminates the dreaded how d I fix that last time?

9 Figure3: Knowledge Xpert s Instant Messages interface with solution notes Knowledge Xpert s message interface, like it s reference content, supports multiple versions of Oracle and DB2 thus eliminating search multiple resources when supporting multiple platform releases. Sharing Expertise: Sharing the collected expertise of the group can be one of the more daunting aspects of successful knowledge management. It s an obvious problem: how to take what the senior DBAs and developers know and place it in the hands of those just getting their feet wet. As we mentioned earlier, you can hold training sessions if you re lucky enough to get a mentoring senior DBA or you have to find a suitable method for cataloging this experience. We ve already mentioned the benefit of Topic Notes for error messages and the associated elimination of duplicate work. What we ve not talked about is the very real benefit of these notes for the purpose of sharing expertise. Every good DBA or developer has notes and white papers filed away for their personal reference all of which can be easily added to extend the expertise of Knowledge Xpert. However, when everyone begins using the tool, the Topic Notes can feature the experience of the senior DBAs as they move through their day. With them placing their experience in Knowledge Xpert, you ll have them getting more work done because they don t have to answer as many questions; you ll have the junior guys getting to draft off of the more experienced members; and you ll also have a collected body of knowledge that grows with the company never to be diminished by turnover.

10 Figure4: Knowledge Xpert s topic note interface With the proliferation of WANs, there s a great possibility of utilizing Knowledge Xpert to tie the global organization together as well as the local. There are many Fortune 100 companies that are using Knowledge Xpert right now for just such a reason. One company in particular has set up the software on the network so the entire worldwide organization can connect to a central repository of topic notes and attachments thereby creating a living body of knowledge that is primarily comprised of experience one of their most valuable assets. Conclusion Managing the knowledge of an entire IT organization is not an easy task and requires a great deal of planning and cooperation from all team members. Knowledge Xpert offers components to assist with the collection of in-house information; provides recommendations, advice, resolutions, scripts and best practices with a comprehensive reference system to facilitate successful knowledge management. From solving day-today research issues to collection of in-house procedures and methodologies, Knowledge Xpert will provide the tools to effectively and efficiently manage your IT department s knowledge resources as outlined within this document.

11 About the Authors Steve Hilker is a Product Manager for the Oracle solutions at Quest Software Inc. He has over 23 years technical experience with the last 8 working with Oracle. Steve s experience ranges from application development to database. As the founder of RevealNet, Steve has extensive experience in the online publishing industry and specifically in the areas of capturing and disseminating technical texts. Daniel Norwood is a senior Quality Assurance Analyst for the Knowledge Xpert and Formatter Plus development teams at Quest Software Inc. Formerly with RevealNet, Daniel has been specializing in Oracle database administration for the last three years. About Quest Software Quest Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: QSFT) is the leading provider of application management solutions. Our software gives businesses confidence that their vital applications will be available and performing well while simultaneously driving down the costs of managing them. By focusing on the people and technology that make applications run, Quest Software enables IT professionals to achieve more with fewer resources and get the most out of existing application investments. Founded in 1987 and based in Irvine, California, Quest Software has offices around the globe and approximately 10,000 business customers worldwide..