Do DBA's (SQL 2008) need to know T-SQL

  • Do MS SQL DBA's (SQL 2008) need to know T-SQL to administer SQL servers?

    Thanks

  • It sure helps.

    A lot of what you'll do in administration can be done more efficiently with T-SQL scripts than it can through Management Studio's GUI. Some things need to be done through T-SQL.

    If all you're doing is administration, you won't need the level of expertise in T-SQL that a database dev or performance tuning expert needs, but you'll almost certainly need to know some.

    - Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
    Property of The Thread

    "Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon

  • Yes, unequicocally, yes.

    As GSquared has said, it helps you automate maintenance and monitoring tasks, and if there is a problem you need to know it to diagnose the problem.

  • Thanks for your answers.

  • I *might* accept limited t-sql knowledge from a jr DBA, but NEVER from a Sr. Basically if the GUI can't do it, then neither can you. Also, what are you going to say when someone comes to you asking for help with a sproc? I don't know how and I don't plan to learn?

    I'm with Jack on this, ABSOLUTELY, you should work towards being a Subject Matter Expert (SME), you can't know everything but you should have Insert/Update/Delete and as many of the options in each down as possible. Book learnin is ok, but you need to do it to be good at it.

    CEWII

  • Not only should they know T-SQL, but they should be "dancing with the stars" when it comes to T-SQL because guess who gets to "tune the database"? Guess who gets to troubleshoot code that no one else can figure out? Guess who's the one they're going to turn to if they have a question on design?

    --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)

  • I'm with Jack, Elliot and Jeff; you absolutely have to know this stuff. Other then what everyone has said so far, depending on the company, the DBA is generally the one they turn to with regards to spec'ing new systems and databases, planning dr and backup strategy, resource usage and capacity planning and a host of other things.

    If its not something you want to look at, my advise would be to look at a new career.

    On the up side, if you like that sort of thing, its quick to learn and fun, theres almost nothing that cant be done and when you start using ssis, ssas, ssrs to pull it all together you'll look back and wonder why the hell you bothered asking such a dumb question!

    Adam Zacks-------------------------------------------Be Nice, Or Leave

  • Yes, and this will become even more so with 2008r2, which I beleive will run on a core o/s install

    hence no local GUI.

    Steven

  • Thanks for all you gold advices.

    If this a correct path to start MS SQL 2008.

    1. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Step by Step

    2. Microsoft SQL Server 2008 T-SQL Fundamentals

    Then

    3. Exam 70-432: Microsoft SQL Server 2008—

    Implementation and Maintenance.

    4. Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Administration- Wrox

  • No. otherway around. do 2 then 1.

    Adam Zacks-------------------------------------------Be Nice, Or Leave

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