March 1, 2015 at 9:52 am
Is it uncommon for DBA's to do development work in SSIS, SSRS or SSAS as a regular part of their job? I'm a DBA who started out as an SSRS Developer and want to maintain that skill as well as learning SSIS while also doing more "core" DBA tasks like backup/restore, maintain HA solutions, troubleshoot job failures, etc. I guess I am saying that I would like to be a hybrid/BI DBA and not just restricted to what appears to be a limited set of tasks as a production DBA. Also, how is the answer to my question generally impacted by the size of the company one works for?
March 1, 2015 at 4:26 pm
Dunno about how common it is but I don't use SSIS, SSRS, SSAS, Service Broker, or any of the other "add-ons" to SQL Server and I've worked for anything and everything from the proverbial Mom'n'Pop Shop up to and including a fairly hefty fortune 500 company. I do work with T-SQL quite a bit and do a fair bit of design and development along with my system responsibilities.
That, not withstanding, there are a huge number of "kitchen sink" job ads written for people who have a really good understanding of SQL Server at the system level along with all the add-ons I just mentioned. That being said, I'd have to say it's not so uncommon and I don't believe that it matters much according to company size although smaller shops would benefit more. I don't know of a big company yet that has turned someone down because they also happen to be good at SSIS. I'm pretty sure they'd find some way to leverage those additional skills even if the job wasn't strictly advertised as a "BI" related job.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
March 2, 2015 at 5:41 am
To support what's already been said, this really is a massive question and relies heavily on the organisation you're currently working for.
As a contractor I like to think that I am able to concentrate on the hardcore "production" DBA role - that's where my heart lies, in keeping servers up, data secure yet available as appropriate, backups, backups, backups (!), maintenance, answering Service Desk calls, and helping out developers with regard to tuning, basic T-SQL skills, database design and so-on where needed.
However, my first (employee) database role really comprised pretty much everything - I helped to develop the company's data warehouse and various other data-centric applications. The admin stuff only really came along when I and a co-worker suddenly realised that no-one else was doing it!
So, what does the organisation that you're currently in want from the role?
Are they happy to train or recruit more staff in order to split things up?
In a regulated industry, such as Financial, there are really important improvements to be made with regard to segregation of duty and such.
Also consider where YOU want to take this role - will you be there forever, do you plan to move around?
Read Brad McGehee's "How to become an Exceptional DBA", which will show you just how many things we COULD cover, but why it's usually a good idea to specialise.
And good luck!
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