I have worked with databases in various forms for over 5 years now. I have used such programs as SQL Server 2005, IBM's DB2, Oracle 8i, MS Access and MySQL. the level of exposure varies from product to product but it has given me a firm base in SQL and how to interact with a database in different ways depending on what the task requires.

My most recent experience is with IBM's DB2 with ACE. We deal with large databases (5GB -10GB in size) which are spread across Europe. With applications of this size there are often tasks, be that an ugrade or a fix that need to be done remotely. This can often involve analysing what the problem is, how the data is inacurate and how we need to resolve this with out affecting some other part of the system.

During my time at ACE I have been developing my knowledge of Microsoft products including ASP.NET and MS SQL Server 2005. To get to grips with this system I started by designing a simple web application that talked a small number of tables that used joins and constraints. I have found MS SQL Server an enjoyable and flexible tool to use with some very useful applications to develop and examine your databases.

My experience of Oracle came at University. This time strengthened my knowledge of SQL and how to interact with larger databases and their components.

During University I wanted to learn how to develop web sites, to this end I wanted to incorporate a database to understand how to query information and display dynamic content relevent to a users needs. I started with an open source language called PHP on the Server that was hosting my site. The site's database was MySQL which I soon became to enjoy working with. A web useful tool I found was PHPMyAdmin, this is a web page that allows the user to be able to administer the databases and content from anywhere via secure username and password login. I produced various databases from very simple single table databases, to multiple tables with numerous primary and foreign key constraints.

I have had a number of different uses for MS Access over the years. My first real use was during my time at Transco (was part of British Gas). I worked as part of the MIS team, we used Access, Excel and Business Objects on a daily basis. I have built whole applications that use VBA to control the user interaction and database administration. As well using Access as the back end database and another application running as the user interface. Within ACE we use Access as a way of having a portable database for your administration on each server. This gives a good segmentation between the DB2, being our core data, and our maintenance and monitoring.