June 24, 2010 at 9:22 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Phantom DBA
June 24, 2010 at 10:05 pm
Man, I sure hope so. This is what I'm basing my future on!
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes
June 24, 2010 at 10:31 pm
Is being a SQL Server DBA still a good career move? Let me be devils advocate and say no.
Current management are trying to ease me into a DBA role. As a Software Development by choice, I only do DBA tasks to maintain improve the current code base. My resistance is causing some friction and will probably end with me leaving sooner rather than latter.
There is a future for large centralized databases but not a bright one.
There is a better future for SOA (service oriented architecture) applications and document oriented databases like Mongo and CouchDB. We are entering a more concurrent/asynchronous computing environment, more dynamic/lightweight/flexible solutions are required. Finding SQL Server (aka Oracle, Sybase etc) hard and very expensive to scale.
June 25, 2010 at 12:42 am
agreed ! i used to be a dotnet guy.. but was forced to move to do DBA tasks... now I am managing ETL tasks, writing SQL scripts primarily and writing a little dotnet code as well...
atleast in my case, the strategy of Phantom DBAs has been followed... 🙁
Mark Magnus (6/24/2010)
Is being a SQL Server DBA still a good career move? Let me be devils advocate and say no.Current management are trying to ease me into a DBA role. As a Software Development by choice, I only do DBA tasks to maintain improve the current code base. My resistance is causing some friction and will probably end with me leaving sooner rather than latter.
There is a future for large centralized databases but not a bright one.
There is a better future for SOA (service oriented architecture) applications and document oriented databases like Mongo and CouchDB. We are entering a more concurrent/asynchronous computing environment, more dynamic/lightweight/flexible solutions are required. Finding SQL Server (aka Oracle, Sybase etc) hard and very expensive to scale.
June 25, 2010 at 12:47 am
Yes, definitely a good career choice.
MS SQL will always be in demand, it's an excellent product, easy to manage, and capable of doing great things. (no, MS didn't pay me for that line)
I'm a product of an accidental DBA, leading into a very exciting, fulfilling career, which I doubt I'll ever regret doing.
To add to what you said on the number of dedicated DBA's to the number of installations, to keep the physical DBA count low, your environment needs to be ultra stable, ultra reliable, and to get it in that state, you'll need a DBA, not a Techie with "some" sql knowledge.
I know how to drive and fill up my car, but I don't service other people's cars for a living....cause if I did, the car's wont last long.....same with databases....
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This thing is addressing problems that dont exist. Its solution-ism at its worst. We are dumbing down machines that are inherently superior. - Gilfoyle
June 25, 2010 at 1:05 am
Get some developers, they need a SQL box, easy, they can manage this themselves, just a few databases - right? Couple of years later you have 150 databases festering away, % grown into a fragmented mess, poorly indexed, poor performance...
IT is only noticed by the bosses when it goes wrong. The eternal struggle for the IT manager is to justify the importance of maintaining the reliable steady state. A DBA role is key to this.
The problem for a small enterprise is that a full-time DBA post may not be justifiable so it either doesn't get done or, more commonly, becomes a pet hobby for one of your developers.
Maybe we need a pool of experienced DBAs that pay a visit once a month to give your SQL instance the once over? Like a travelling doctor, they recommend minor surgery, some pills and off they go. This would be money well spent.
June 25, 2010 at 1:21 am
I can't say for the worldwide trends, I don't have that perception. I can only say for my shop and what I see around me.
I got from developer and accidental DBA to "full time" DBA. I put that in quotes because I still write tons of code, write down analysis documents and assist users, but now my main task is maintaining the databases.
I think it's been a good choice for me moving to DBA job after over ten years in development.
Developers have to stay tuned and up to date on too many technologies. It's too chaotic: you end your studies with a skillset that gets outdated in one or two years, while you have to stick to what you're coding in at work. Self training on new technologies doesn't help much, since you can't pretend that it has the same importance as hands-on experience.
The final result is that you can't distinguish a developer with two years of experience from a developer with ten years. I'm not even taking into account those that have twelve years of experience: they're dinosaurs for the job market.
The only way out is moving to something else, usually becoming an analyst. Almost every developer wants to move there, but there's not room for everyone.
The database world is a bit different. It looks like it suffers less of everyday's new trends. A well-designed database stays so for 20-30 years or even more. It doesn't get outdated. Code does.
On the other hand, database products tend to get more user-friendly with every release, lowering the bar for a decent administration. Even Oracle is going down that road. Does it mean it will allow anybody who can spell the word "database" to administer a data center? I don't think so, but somebody does. Oracle DBAs used to look down to MSSQL DBAs as pretenders because they use GUI tools: this is changing but I think it's quite significant.
Somebody says that the future is in database appliances (HexaData ?????), so DBAs be prepared to be the ones that "plug the chord and let the box do the job for them".
Sorry for the long post.
-- Gianluca Sartori
June 25, 2010 at 1:31 am
WillC9999 (6/25/2010)
Get some developers, they need a SQL box, easy, they can manage this themselves, just a few databases - right? Couple of years later you have 150 databases festering away, % grown into a fragmented mess, poorly indexed, poor performance...
That quite well describes the company that I'm doing a number of SQL rescue projects for at the moment...
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
June 25, 2010 at 1:55 am
I speak from experience of my own place of work! We failed to take a proper handle on regular DBA work and have spent the last 6 months fixing and implenting a raft of regular checks (undesirable growth/shrink settings, upfront file size allocation, fragmentation checks and fixes etc). It's amazing how much you need to do to keep on top of things - and I would like to thank a whole host of folk who's useful postings we pilfered from various web sites. The internet is a great thing 🙂
After all the dust has settled though I am much more confident (and comfortable) with our setup now.
June 25, 2010 at 2:39 am
I think the role of the dba is certainly safe for long time to come, I think it will have to evolve to deal with the issues that happen when moving to a cloud like environment (we'll know what these are when we get there!) but whenever you see polls on the most requested IT job skill, sql is always near or at the top of the list.
I don't know who these people are but they seem to think that in the US a dba is in the top ten most popular careers for 2010:
http://www.alec.co.uk/free-career-assessment/top-10-most-popular-careers.htm
Even if this is totally made up, it still says good things for dba's ;-)!
The problem I have seen here in the UK isn't a lack of dba's, but more a lack of database developers, so db dev work is left to other devs who know something about sql, but that is often not enough to do things the right way.
Ed
(Sql Developer - Ex Sql-Dba)
June 25, 2010 at 2:46 am
After being a DBA contractor for 10 years I have seen some shocking setups of SQL, now after moving to the dark side of permanent employment I have been hired as the 'first official' DBA in the company.
Systems aren't too bad but basics seems to be forgotten backups, indexing etc etc. It seems companies only realize they need a DBA when something breaks, still I enjoy a challenge so here's hoping the DBA roll will only grow and grow!
June 25, 2010 at 3:11 am
I started as an IT Analyst/Developer about 20 years ago (the analyst part was system and server admin, the Developer was mainly SQL and 'C' ), then moved to Network/Server admin and then moved to the DBA role, I'm still what I'd call a hybrid DBA.
What I have experienced is that the introduction of specialisms i.e. splitting serverdamin, SQL developer and DBA roles entirely has reduced the flexibility of the DBA role and reduced the value of the role. This seems to have been exacerbated by the transfer of IT skills to large IT corporates driven by the IT outsourcing market. As time goes on there seem to be more and more DBA's who not only have limited knowledge about the o/s, AD and infrastructure on which the DB Servers sit but also seem to lack understanding how all these elements tie together. IMO a DBA needs strong server and network admin skills as well as DB Server specific skills, but by isolating these skills into different functional areas you not only reduce flexibility and devalue the worth of each IT resource but also introduce information silos and complexity.
I have had numerous experiences where "issues" have been passed between these differently specialised groups like a hot potato that no one wants to eat. This is just not an efficient way of doing things.
Although I'm sure that most of us who work as DBA's still wear many hats I think that we DBA's are beginning to specialise ourselves out of the mid to low end market, this is exacerbated by the higher end market forcing us into niches of overspecialisation.
June 25, 2010 at 5:59 am
One of the questions we run into when converting small business clients to SQL Server - who are coming from packages like Visual FoxPro, Access, Paradox and other applications with built-in databases - is "You mean I have to hire someone to program, and then someone else to manage data???" They usually ask this question with an astounded look on their faces, unable to fathom the logic that what was once done in one software package now requires two or three - and as many people to handle it all.
As well, small clients do not understand what a DBA is, does, or should be doing. Personally, I see this as the penalty we pay for never having the DBA role properly defined. Clients understand "programmer", they understand "data entry person", but throw "DBA" at them and they think its some baseball statistic.
Then there is the issue of cost and this has always been the fulcrum of my argument that any DBA who does not know how to program as well, is a waste of money. With small and medium business owners, this cost is very real, and very hard to justify, and thus my answer would be fairly simple and logical...
YES, we see a number of client companies who are forgoing any DBA. In our own company, the DBA role is not a single skill role - we would not have enough work to justify that. I think overall (save for large corporations or maybe web-based service businesses) the DBA role is becoming a subset-role, and some would argue that is how it should be, and really how it has always been.
June 25, 2010 at 6:20 am
I am a developer with 26 years experience, working for county government. We have 7 programmer/analysts and have never had a DBA. We support Informix, Sybase and SQL Server. Although we have minimal DBA knowledge, there just haven’t been any problems. That is probably because our in-house databases are relatively small and reside on local servers accessed only by network users. I also agree that the best employees have a wide knowledge base rather than a narrow focus.
June 25, 2010 at 6:23 am
A small shop could probably get away without one as long as they have someone who's sharp enough to figure it out. But career prospects seem to be good. I get unsolicited emails or calls once a month asking me to apply to one DBA job or another. None of my DBA friends are working jobs they're unhappy with since there are more openings than skilled DBAs. I see the server management side of things getting easier and requiring less time, therefore less people. But with people wanting business intelligence, the parts of the platform that aren't the database engine will continue to need more people.
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