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CAREER ADVICE : From DBA to the world of BI

  • August 1, 2011 at 5:45 pm

    #245510

    Just thought I would put this one out there to see if any of my peers have some advice or maybe someone else has done it....

    I'm a Mid Level DBA with 4-5 years experience mainly as a production DBA but lately involved in more database design as well as Production DBA work. I have experience with SSIS and SSRS - more so with SSIS to work with automating processes and generate various file formats from data.

    I am looking to make the move into BI but I do not have any experience with data warehousing/mining etc. - My latest position was meant to be involve a new datawarehousing project but the company have put it on hold.

    So I guess my question is what way is best to try and make the shift. I do not think it will be easy to gain a BI position without SSAS / warehousing experience and I do not want to move back down the salary scale to a more Junior position - would be willing to move across before starting to move up again though.

    All I can think of is to read up as much as I can on BI in the new few months and try and get a DBA position that would encompass SSAS and then continue to move into the BI area without trying to make the jump all at once.

    Anyways as I said just thought I would put it out there to see if anyone has any tips!

    Cheers,

    JayK

  • August 1, 2011 at 6:48 pm

    #1361920

    Buy a copy of the SQL Server Developer's Edition (which will run fine on most home machines without Window's Server) and practice on your own. Buy a book on BI and go through every example at your own pace. Most will run you through the Adventure Works DB. If you want to practice on millions of rows, it's a simple thing to make multi-million row tables.

    --Jeff Moden

    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

    Helpful Links:
    How to post code problems
    How to Post Performance Problems
    Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

  • August 2, 2011 at 2:08 am

    #1361980

    Get a copy of the Data warehouse lifecycle toolkit by the Kimball group and read this from cover to cover. It will give you a very good understanding of all aspects of data warehousing / BI.

  • August 2, 2011 at 10:02 pm

    #1362796

    Thanks for the helpful replies - been reading the online preview of The Microsoft Data Warehouse Toolkit: With SQL Server 2008 R2 and the Microsoft Business Intelligence Toolset on amazon and it is extremely interesting - just put my order in - I'll post back when I get my first BI position 😀

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