Oracle Application Server; What role in an organization typically supports the middle tier?

Question

In medium to large organizations what team or group typically support middle tier components like Oracle Application Servers?

(Unix Team, DBA Team, Or Application Development/Support Team)

In a client server application design the delineation of ownership between the server and the client is very clear. In the client server case the Unix Administrators manage the servers and the development support team manage and support the clients. (and the DBA's support/manage the database)

Recently at our shop the lines have become blurred; the introduction of an Oracle application Server (OAS) has popped up;

OAS seems to require a very unique set of skills but also show some similarity to the client server skills. (part Unix Admin, Part Dba, Part Application Developer/Client Support)

What have others done when confronted with this kind of challenge......??

Does a completely new team form that exclusively supports the Middle Tier??

Our It Group has 3 Unix Admins; 3 Application Support staff; 3 Dba's to give the perspective of the size of the teams....

Answer 1

For large organizations, you generally eventually get to a point where there are dedicated teams to manage the middle tier web servers and application servers.

The problem for smaller organizations generally comes that when you first deploy the app servers, there may not be enough admin work to justify a separate person in that role, at which point you have to cobble together time from other teams. It's not particularly unusual for DBAs to manage the app server (particularly for Oracle DBAs managing Oracle Application Servers). It's also not particularly unusual for the Unix admins to manage the app server. Either way, though, some of the work will inevitably benefit from input from the other team.

Answer 2

IMHO there should be a single "Oracle" team, comprising DBA's, unix admins, application admins, and even a network person for big installations. There is really only one system, although it has multiple tiers and technologies. You do not want four teams all passing the buck round when a system fault occurs. Ask me how I know ;)

Answer 3

There are a couple of different options, to my mind:

1) Roll it into the application development/support team as this is part of an application that isn't necessarily where only Admins are useful. There should be a separation between development and support to some extent as different tools may be used and some may have a stronger skill set for one over the other such as if one prefers investigating things then support may be a better fit.

2) Platform management team which is a separate group where there is a separation of the layers involved in the applications the company produces. I used to work for a company where the middle tier and back-end were managed by one team that was separate from the Applications group which seems appropriate if there is the plan of having that middle and back-end tiers become a platform for the company to pitch to other companies to use how they see fit in terms of making their own applications on top of this API.

I can see a logic in using either method depending on how one sees what the IT arm offers in a sense.

Answer 4

The ultimate solutions is to never run production apps on OAS.