The title of our keynote session at the Redgate Summit in Atlanta is Navigating the Database Landscape, and I'll be delivering part of the talk, along with Grant Fritchey and Kathi Kellenberger today, Mar 13. This is based on the State of Database Landscape Survey results, as well as our experience working with customers and implementing DevOps solutions over the last decade. The talk was mostly written by others, but as I rehearsed the session, I found myself wondering about how I'd approach my job if we returned to being a DBA or developer.
When working in technology today, there are many challenges outside of actually learning about any of the particular products, languages, platforms, etc. We have the politics of working with others, ongoing work, emergency requests outside of channels, random questions asked by others, code reviews, and probably a few other things I'm forgetting, all outside of learning any new skills. While I consider myself a lifelong learner, I know that finding time (and energy) to acquire the basics of any new technology is challenging.
At the same time, while working in any size estate, it seems that someone always wants to add a new tool, platform, language, service, or database to the environment. It's great we have choices, but it seems like sometimes every technologist wants to just use something new rather than work within the areas we have experience. Early in my career, it was rare to find more than 1 or 2 database platforms in a company. Now we have lots, often seemingly just added because one person watched a talk or video and thinks it would solve all our problems in this particular instance.
Working in an enterprise of any size likely means there are multiple database platforms in use. While you might only be in charge of 1 or 2 today, who knows when someone will call you as the "database expert" and expect you to configure Redis or troubleshoot ElasticSearch. I've had friends in this position, and I've had people come ask me to figure out MySQL, DB2, BTrieve, Lucerne, and more in my career. It's a challenge, and it's also stressful because I want to do a good job, even if I don't know what I'm doing. Fortunately Internet search, contacts among friends, and more have helped me usually solve an issue.
The modern database landscape is likely to be more complex than ever, and with the advent of cloud services, we find there are lots of options that anyone in an organization might choose to use in production, and then ask you to support them. Our jobs are increasingly complex, both from the depth of things we need to know about a database to the breadth of different products and services that might enter our realm of responsibility. Navigating all this is a challenge, but if you rise to the occasion, there can be a lot of rewards.
