March 5, 2007 at 12:56 pm
Hello,
This is a general question regarding career path. My company is going with an Offshore Production DBA model. All current support activities in the future will be handled by an off-shore DBA staff. The DBA's currently doing this support will be moved into an Application DBA role.
My question is how should I prepare for this, if possible. Basicaly I have been doing all prod support work most of my career and have not done any development type of work. What can I do to ease into this change? Are there any classes I should take whether online or instructor led? Are there any books I should look at that takes this into account?
I'm looking forward to the change but I don't want to wait until the last minute. I would like to start getting familiar with what the application DBA does; what does dev entail; writing code etc..? Any information on this would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Mike
March 5, 2007 at 2:31 pm
I've seen many definitions of produtction DBAs. I think that the best solution for you would be to ask your company what they will ask of you in the near future. Then you will have a better idea of where to go. You might also test the water to see if there are able to offer you some training to ease the transition. This can come in the form of class training, books, online formation.
March 6, 2007 at 7:59 am
Depending on your experience, this could be a tough transition. You need to learn to work with and like developers. I'd work on db design, advanced tsql programming, xml, and whatever programming language and connectivity that your company uses, for example .NET & ADO.NET. Even if you're not writing code yourself, as a development DBA, you should be able to understand how the developers are accessing the system in order to either support them better, or identify where & when they're going wrong.
I've spent most of my career as a development dba or as a developer. I've found it to be a much faster moving more dynamic place than maintaining production systems. Have fun!
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March 7, 2007 at 5:43 am
I agree - you need to find out what is expected of you. I work with production systems but at many levels so as I specialise in application and server tuning I tend to work with developers and code.
I guess it depends upon how you see a "DBA" role, I'd hope you have T-SQL skills and that you have not been a "GUI" DBA, otherwise i suspect you may have problems. I originally came from a programming background learning structured programing and OO ( so no basic ) into devloping and supporting client server systems - way back - I usually work with developers, architects and systems teams ( web, com, app, services etc. ) as part of my work. If you've done this as part of your production role then you shouldn't have too many problems. Speaking from experience of "out sourced systems" you may need to do some policing so don't think you'll not need your skills, I haven't found out sourced solutions to be very good < grin >
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