Perl is a very powerful tool for Oracle database administration and can be extremely helpful in managing, monitoring, and tuning Oracle9i, Oracle8i, and earlier databases.

In one of our recent projects, we used Perl to fetch updated records from a 'huge' (~11GB) and very actively accessed oracle database (indeed, multiple databases) deployed in an enterprise and migrate these records every hour to a web based MySQL database. The application runs as a service / daemon in a prescribed schedule and can also be executed at will or whenever (additionally) required.

Perl offers excellent database connectivity to multiple databases (Oracle, MySQL, etc.) and executes in the Unix shell with little overhead. In this case, the application is running over the last 9 months without a single default or error, providing a very robust and scalable solution.