Complex DB solutions are not rare nowadays, so I have an idea to deploy a SQL "sandbox" for staff training before real projects come. Mainly I interested in 2 things to have:
- Oracle 11+ DB instance.
- MS SQL Server 2008 (or better 2012) DB instance.
I want to deploy these using my company infrastructure, probably vCloud (we already have that up & running). However, while the infrastructure question should mostly be addressed to IT guys, I need to decide on the following:
- What tables / structure is recommended for learning purposes? That shouldn't be too complex, even for complete beginners, but at the same time DB should have enough for more advanced practice.
- Is there any significant difference in approach in training for MS SQL and Oracle? While elementary
SELECT
statements are pretty much similar, further things are most likely not (I have enough exp with Oracle, but hardly ever played with MS SQL). - Easy redeploy / restore: e.g. once a month DB should be reset to initial state. I suppose that should be done via resetting either DB snapshot OR the virtual server itself, but I'm not certain about hidden details of these.
- Set of exercises / training solutions for the wide range of skills? This is definitely a hard point for me.
I'm pretty much sure even small companies do invest in staff training, so your nice suggestions and best practices are very much welcome here.