It's been a crazy couple of months for me, with the US tour of SQL in the City and the fall DevConnections conference taking me away from the ranch and to a variety of places. Those events had me away from home and delivering 14 talks on a variety of topics with a few more coming next week at SQL in the City - Seattle 2012. I'm just stopping by for a few days at home before I head back out to the Pacific Northwest for a few days.

My job is not the typical job that DBAs have, and my schedule results in a number of trips all around the US and sometimes to Europe. Despite that travel, my daily chores still need to get complete. I don't have to manage servers like many of you, but I do have a certain number of processes that need to run every day and require me to prepare things in advance when I'm away. I'm glad for all the automation since I'm not sure how I'd cope otherwise.

It's not that much different than my former production DBA routine. There were times when I was in a class, or attending an event, or even working on a large deployment of some application. At those times I'd often be away from my desk, and less available then other times, but I still had to keep an eye on the rest of the systems. Like many of you, I setup automation, crossed my fingers, and hoped that no major issues would crop up while my attention was focused elsewhere.

Over time I learned to let go a little as a DBA. If something broke, then it had to wait, or a manager had to decide which crisis needed to be handled first. I realized I couldn't stress myself out about other systems and had to count on them running while I was away. These days I also do the best I can, but I also realize that at times I might have something break while I'm away. I have to trust that someone else will fix it, or I'll deal with it when I return.

Next Thursday.

Steve Jones

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