Taking over the world
-
I have recently hired into an environment where there is no central authority for our SQL environment. The team I am on is the closest to it since all Oracle goes through our department. However, currently, any business unit that wants to buy a server and slap SQL on it can do so. Occasionally, these groups get in a bind and then decide to come knocking for some help digging out of a hole. In some cases, they relent and turn the database administration over to our group. In others they do not.
So, you may be able to see where I am going with this. I am aspiring to more of a managerial role in the organization. I have a vision of selling the CIO of bringing all SQL (so-called) DBA's under one umbrella and letting me hold the umbrella. I am confident the CIO will recognize the value of the plan, but I am interested in ways I can not only sell him but the business units of it as well.
The things I plan to pitch are:
- Enterprise Standards for security
- Capacity management
- Server consolidation
- Better licensing structure
Anyone with success or failure stories in a similar situation?
Remember this when a developer tells you it will just be temporary. Temporary = Permanent.
-
Those are administrative details.....and not sexy for a cio...or ceo.
Concentrate more on risk (downtime, bad apps, bad data, lost business, disconnected business processes, SOX) and the cost of failure thereof. Highlighting the holes/islands to date will clarify the state-of-emergency, and that this is not just a land-grab!
Positives should also be accentuated (as it'd can't be all a big-bad-story selling pitch either) would be better service (via a centre of DBA excellence), job rotation/upskilling, cross-platform/db skills transfer.
Good luck with the cause.
-
G'day,
What you are suggesting is that the business change the way things are done. Businesses change for one of two reasons: to increase the profitable revenue brought in the door; or to reduce the costs of bringing in the revenue. Your case to the CxO will have to be based on one or both of those reasons.
Pragmatically, it is very unlikely that reorganizing the technical empires in the company is going to increase top line revenues. So, how are you going to reduce bottom line costs by creating your empire? Andrew provided some possible answers. Your task now is to identify additional answers and then QUANTIFY THE SAVINGS. When you can tell the CxO that the current process is costing 'X', and the new process is going to cost 'Y', with an implementation cost of 'Z' that will be recovered in 6 to 12 months based on savings, then you have a chance of success.
Consider not just the direct costs of moving people around, but the unplanned costs of things like turnover. Some of the current DBAs may not want to work for you, and will transition out of the company. There is a hiring cost that you need to consider. (It may be that better use of the remaining skilled people is one way you plan to save money, hint, hint, wink)
Consider the feasibility of centralized DB support in a global firm. If the firm is large enough to operate 24 hours a day in geographically distributed manner, then centralized management of the DB group may not be feasible.
If this sounds like management stuff, your right. Running a technical center of excellence is a management position, and will require that you make business decisions for the right business reasons. Might as well get started.
Good luck
Wayne
-
Scare him,
tell him about the slammer worm and give him some stats on how many of the machines are maintained to the latest patch release.
David
If it ain't broke, don't fix it...
-
Economies of scale, TCO, Enterprise Management and Enterprise Monitoring ... maybe a few searches of MS and the web for whitepapers may give you some additional upper echelon information insights as well. Might I also suggest EMC & Hitachi for a storage perspective. MS and Oracle from a DB perspective and Veritas from a DR/backup perspective.
RegardsRudy KomacsarSenior Database Administrator"Ave Caesar! - Morituri te salutamus."
-
One more for the scare column.
Shortly after starting my current position I invited the entire web development team (including managers) to a meeting in the training lab. I had a copy of one of our production SQL Servers set up. They watched as I completely scrambled the instance of SQL Server using a simple SQL Injection attack. That woke a few people up.
I am very lucky in that I have great developers and managers in the development area. It is not a confrontational environment. However, in your situation, this may well persuade reluctant CxO types of the need for enforceable standards and possibly the desirability of centralized database management.
I agree wholeheartedly with the need to present the business case, but even non-technical people can see the danger of unsecured data.
HTH
Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply