At our company we have two DBAs to take care of all the databases in the production and QA. It is not a big task. We have only twelve database servers. In the past our company was happy with just us the two DBAs. Now it has all changed. They want to have a monitoring team that works seven days a week. For this the management asked me how we can get this done.
I came up with a suggestion that we get two junior DBA's and let them be in charge of monitoring. That would leave me and my other DBA to concentrate on other important tasks. To get two junior DBA's to come down to our island is not cost effective. Therefore I thought I would pick couple of candidates fresh out of college and train them to be a DBA. I got one person like that. Her name is Surenda. She is fresh out of college and she has the drive and will to learn.
What I appreciate the most is I give advance notice on what topic I will be training her on one day in advance. Before she comes for the session, she spends her time reading about the topic (Google and read articles) so that she can get the most out of it.
It is tough to spend at the least two hours of my day to train. But her willingness to learn gives me the satisfaction. I hope it turns out good. So far I am happy with the progress she is making. If this experiment turns out like I hope, then I will start training another person.
