September 25, 2010 at 11:50 am
Big companies operate in multiple countries often have their IT functions scattered in different countries, and is shifting or already shifted most of their IT functions to low cost regions like Mexico or India. As for database support, a single team of DBAs from these low cost regions usually support all database platforms and they are trained for all these platforms. I think that really make them very very marketable when it comes to career advancement.
Should SQL DBAs in U.S. also look into expanding our horizon as well? Is it feasible??
September 27, 2010 at 6:33 am
TrailRunner (9/25/2010)
Big companies operate in multiple countries often have their IT functions scattered in different countries, and is shifting or already shifted most of their IT functions to low cost regions like Mexico or India. As for database support, a single team of DBAs from these low cost regions usually support all database platforms and they are trained for all these platforms. I think that really make them very very marketable when it comes to career advancement.Should SQL DBAs in U.S. also look into expanding our horizon as well? Is it feasible??
Is it feasable? Sure. Why not?
Should they? I think it depends on the individual. Let me answer the question with a question: if you're a VB programmer, should you also train on C#, C++, Java, etc.?
Personally, I think too much emphasis is put on the technology (or, speaking as a developer, the language). So long as someone understands the concepts, it should not matter what platform they use. If one is a programmer, as long as (s)he understands structured and object-oriented programming concepts, the language should be irrelevant. Similarly, relational data infrastructure is the same, regardless of whether or not one uses SQL, Access, Oracle, etc.
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September 27, 2010 at 6:43 am
Yes and no. Is it a good idea to understand how common concepts apply across platforms? Sure is. But you can only get so deep on multiple systems. If the needs of the company you work for, or your consulting selling point, is that you're an expert on System X, you'd best be constantly learning more and more about System X. You can really only be deep or wide. You can't usually be both.
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September 27, 2010 at 6:50 am
it is a good idea to be aware of the other systems, but i dont think it would be possible to become an 'expert' in every product. In my opinion you are better off picking an area and knowing that inside-out rather than knowing a bit of everything.
Also my experience of out-sourced IT operations in 'low-cost' areas is that often the companies that take these on have people that know a little of everything rather than a lot of something.
September 27, 2010 at 8:19 am
Unless you want to, or your company uses those platforms, I'd say no. There's too much to learn, and places that want to provide support for multiple platforms either
a) do it poorly (with good salesman)
b) use multiple people
Many companies do this. I used to manage the DBA team and it was 10 people, with separate individuals handling SQL Server, Oracle, and DB2. Some cross training at times, but mostly it was person A specializing in Oracle and person B specializing SQL Server.
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