June 13, 2016 at 9:27 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item We Manage Algorithms
June 14, 2016 at 12:55 am
Will software developers become more important than DBAs as we end up with more unstructured data stores, data lakes, or other constructs that might require less administration?
I work as a full stack developer, thus also doing some DBA work as well. I've never been on a company that actually has a proper DBA here in Sweden. I've worked in fund- and insurance- and bank companies.
We usually have separate people who manage backups and the hardware but never propper DBAs. Managing the sql jobs, indexes and fine tuning etc we developers always do.
I'd love to work with a full time DBA, if your focus is one job and one job only, I could never be that good because I have focus on databases and applications and web and to some extent security.
I am guessing it costs money but really, when you have a team of 5-30 developers, having a DBA should not be a cost issue.
Perhaps it's an awareness issue or perhaps it's a lack of real DBAs?
Thus I find some of these articles and posts on SQL server central to be somewhat distant but interesting.
June 14, 2016 at 6:38 am
This also means we will need algorithms that can help us determine if data is actually good enough to use. After all, in the deluge, there will be bad data, that potentially needs to be excluded from queries. Will software developers become more important than DBAs as we end up with more unstructured data stores, data lakes, or other constructs that might require less administration?
It will be very interesting (and painful) if a lot of determining whether data is good enough to use, or should be excluded is needed. That needs a proper understanding of risk, and an excellent grasp of probability. In many cases, it probably demands expertise in statistics. Neither the average developer nor the average dba has the relevant skills.
Lakes and unstructured stores will probably require just as much administration as strctured stores - after all, ensuring that the data is secure will require administration of access controls, administration of storage, and administration (including verification of effectiveness) of recovery mechanisms and hence of backup, in whatever form that takes.
Much of what a competent DBA does is NOT administration - tasks like tuning queries, devising schemata, selecting indexes are all architecture, design, development, and the title "DBA" seems inappropriate for people who have responsability for those tasks. It's no surprise that some of those who are expert at those tasks are called "DBA" instead of something more appropriate, because in the early days that admin tasks were lumped together with those tasks. When it comes to designing schemata in the relational world, it is already crucial that whoever does that task knows what that data is for, what the business needs from the data, what conditions determine whether the data is valid, what the expected access patterns for the data are, and how the interface provided by the database impacts application development and application performance and (of course) how all that will change over time, so if that is a DBA the DBA has to know about the whole stack from end user to database.
So I don't think that we will end up with developers being more important than DBAs, because all that will happen is that both DBAs and developers (as well as architects and designers and sofware engineers) will have to learn a lot of extra stuff.
Tom
June 14, 2016 at 9:10 am
"Every business is an algorithmic business."
That's an interesting phrase that Microsoft's Joseph Sirosh has used. I find it interesting because of the change in Microsoft's thinking. They used to use the phrase, "Every business is a software business." (I think it was Ballmer that coined that phrase.) So it's interesting to see the change in thinking.
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
June 14, 2016 at 4:14 pm
I actually think it the opposite. I believe our so-called data engineers (who are ideally our existing BI developers, SQL developers, etc) will step into this role more than our software developers that are actually working on enterprise.
It will be up to them to implement and maintain such algorithms just it may be up to them to write ETL, SQL queries and more with the software developers and other business users such as the analyst or data scientist.
Of course, that does not mean the business won't try to add one more thing to the software developers plate, I think the passion to do it right will always fall on those who are generally interested in data such as those core data engineers, BI developers, SQL developer and so forth.
December 8, 2016 at 10:34 am
I see:
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (6/13/2016)
...greater influence from both developers and DBAs as we work to better manage the floods of data...
more than:
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (6/13/2016)
...software developers become more important than DBAs...
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply