Oracle isn't loosing demand and will actually continue to grow in the market(banks,insurance companies,telco,govt parastatals etc) this is due to the increasing sophistication of IT in the country. Also keep in mind that Oracle as a company is very aggressive and acquires a competitor or complementary product every 2 years! http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/technology/22oracle.html?_r=1


Experienced DBA's are hard to come by so you'll need more than just the OCP certificate to prove it and as someone else mentioned you might need another complementary programming language(Java,C# etc) to see you through the not so busy DBA periods i.e. if you're into contracting

they way they go about acquiring companies these days is insane they are not a particularly an innovative company and their CEO has been described as a d!ick.

interesting post!truth of the matter is Oracle Database and any other RDBMS can not lose its demand in Nigeria as it just gathering full steam! and if you want to be a core DBA, why not?as azum said most big companies usually have Oracle DBA's for specific roles like application dev, backup and recov, security, network etc whereas a DBA in a smaller company does virtually everything. In the I.T. industry, you should be "Jack of all trades and master of one" eg you can be a very good DBA and have good skills in either virtualization, networking or any other part of I.T., i would never discourage anyone from going into Oracle, u just a lot of determination, hardwork, practice and the most important, God, because with Him all things are possible, and by the way i happen to be an Oracle DBA working in construction company in Abuja! so i think i should know a thing or two.

dont mind my typos i meant you need! anyway i got my dream job as a DBA in 2009 with no experience whatsoever! heck i even failed the written, oral and practical exams!but because of a simple prayer i said "Lord let your favour be on me, so that when they see me they will see you"! that was it and i got it!

jimblaze:

dont mind my typos i meant you need! anyway i got my dream job as a DBA in 2009 with no experience whatsoever! heck i even failed the written, oral and practical exams!but because of a simple prayer i said "Lord let your favour be on me, so that when they see me they will see you"! that was it and i got it!

Congrats Jim. I am happy for you. What you need now more than anything else while on the job is self development, hard work, excessive reading and mentoring. And if you do have any question do not forget to ask. Hopefully when next i am in the country i will bring along my e-library and share whatever i think can help you develop in the job with you if you so desire.
Congrats once again.

jimblaze:

dont mind my typos i meant you need! anyway i got my dream job as a DBA in 2009 with no experience whatsoever! heck i even failed the written, oral and practical exams!but because of a simple prayer i said "Lord let your favour be on me, so that when they see me they will see you"! that was it and i got it!

mmmhhh, this inspires me.

@azum thanks, that would be great, @babyface12 it can happen to you too!