I feel that, ultimately, an Exception DBA is defined by his or her actions, so place yourself in the shoes of a company's senior DBA, in each of the following scenarios, and consider how you would react:

1. You're just about to go home for the day, when the SAN supporting a mission-critical SQL Server cluster fails, bringing the company's systems to a grinding halt
2. It's the weekend and you hear on the radio that a Force 3 hurricane is about to hit your area.
3. You've just started your new DBA job, and you find out that the databases don’t have any security configured, and backups haven’t been made in weeks
4. You notice that a higher than normal number of queries have been hitting the payroll database lately. You find that a sales manager with the company has been running the queries. He has the security rights to perform the queries as a member of the Executive Committee role.
5. Word has just come down from the top that an often-delayed database project has to be ready in eight weeks, no excuses. An inexperienced Project Manager is the cause of the delay.
6. The company CFO has been pitched a slick sales presentation on a new BI application that will “save” the company millions of dollars. After some investigation, you realize that it will actually end up costing the company tens of thousands of dollars in wasted resources to implement, and that it won’t do what it is advertised to do.

There is no single correct response to any of these dilemmas, but in my opinion (and experience), an Exceptional DBA would respond something like as follows:

1. Critical SAN gone down? You immediately set about contacting all relevant parties and implementing the organization’s disaster recovery plan. You don't get any sleep for over 36 hours until the system is back up and running as normal.
2. Hurricane on its way? You head into work immediately, double-check that all the database backups have been successful and that the company is prepared to move to a backup site should the data center be damaged by the hurricane.
3. New to the company…No security? No backups? You immediately go to the IT manager, knock on the door, and explain what the problems are and how you intend to fix them.
4. Suspicious activity on the payroll database? Despite the security rights he has, you know that the sales manager has no business looking at payroll data, especially for employees that he is not responsible for. You turn over the trace results to your boss.
5. Inexperienced PM and an "impossible" deadline? You immediately call a meeting of all those involved in the project, take responsibility for the delay and outline exactly how you will lead the team to a successful completion of the project. You don't care whose "fault" it was, you just want to get the job done on time and done well.
6. CFO wants to implement a potentially disastrous new BI system? After a quiet and thorough investigation on the product you write up a paper on the problems with the application and why it won’t fit well within the organization. You then ask your boss to pass it to the CFO, without asking for any credit for writing the paper. You realize that if the advice comes from your boss, then it will carry more weight with the misinformed CFO.

Of course, these actions don't completely define the Exceptional DBA, but they are the sort of actions I'd expect to see. In addition, the Exceptional DBA has many other characteristics, such as a well-grounded knowledge in technology and SQL Server, is an avid learner, and is willing to share his or her knowledge with others, among many others.

What Do You Think?

I don’t believe the above examples describe some non-existent, fantasy DBA Super Hero, but is a description of the many hard-working DBAs I have met over the course of my career. So what do you think? Do you feel my description of an Exceptional DBA is a fantasy, or is it reality?

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