July 8, 2012 at 4:48 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The DBA Tax
July 8, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Excellent editorial, Steve! I wish I could give it a hundred stars because it really hits the nail on the head. There're too many people that spend way too much time doing the "Chicken Little" thing.
I'll also point out that there are also too many people that invest way too much time in following the lastest and greatest shiney object. Yes, things like Power Pivot are absolutely the bee knees but, if you don't know how to do a simple CROSS TAB with some pretty good performance behind it, then you're really not doing anyone a favor. You've got to know the basics first.
As I ask a lot of people who skip the basics... "Do you want to be a DBA... or just a user?"
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
July 8, 2012 at 10:48 pm
I have to strongly agree against Jeff. 😉
"When PowerPivot was released a few years ago, I heard no shortage of fears from data professionals that this tool would eliminate much of their work. Since then I've heard no shortage of consultants and BI developers say that this tool has spurred even more work for them. It simplifies prototyping, and allows for a better front end experience, but it also requires better data, cleaner data, and better models of data for users to work with. They are drowning in work."
Steve, I think you forgot the word "performance." PowerPivot gave an entirely new meaning to it.
And yes, to state the obvious, "drowning in work" does not even begin to make any justice to the description. (I worked honest 6 hours this sunny July Sunday...)
July 9, 2012 at 1:02 am
..And it was ever thus
I remeber being on a training course back in 1984 learning COBOL being told (by the trainer !) that we were the last generation of programmers and that after a couple of years our Role would be to assist end-users in building their own systems .... however the 4GL has come and gone , programmers still program DBAs and sysadmins still administer ...
That is not to say that technology has not eliminated some roles - I don't think there are many (if any ) punch operators or Tape librarians out there and the computer operator has evolved away from being just a "tape monkey" into more of an ops support role but as the French say -- Plus ca change
July 9, 2012 at 1:32 am
The only ones who see us as a "tax" on company computer systems are the technical/network managers who can't understand why we do so many backups and need so much storage and tell us that their once a day tape backup is enough for our databases (assuming that particular production server is even on their list of backups :-D)
July 9, 2012 at 7:11 am
For years I've seen companies that produce BI products make the claim that users will be able to create complex reporting such as "as of", drill thru graphs, etc right out of the box. A constant I always see is that this is never the case. Report writing is a profession itself and it is something that requires experience to be good at. We have been a re-seller for several reporting tools that we package with our app and I've never once been worried about job security due to any reporting tool.
Cheers
July 9, 2012 at 7:25 am
Steve,
I agree with the point that I believe you were intending to make. No arguments whatsoever.
However, a lot of people are worried about losing their jobs, and the reasons are similar enough that I expect to see some contrarian positions here. For example, a lot of highly educated people end up losing their jobs as part of cost cutting measures, only to be replaced by less costly, younger workers. The H1B visa is an atrocious attack on American high tech workers, sold to the public as a way to fill jobs "nobody wants" and "nobody is qualified for", and has been shown to be causing a decline in college students pursuing tech.
Am I afraid of technology replacing me? Not at all.
Do I understand why a lot of people are worried about thier jobs, oh yeah. Those who do may or may not benefit from improving themselves. It is possible to improve oneself out of a job as the cost to employ is raised.
Dave
Dave
July 9, 2012 at 7:54 am
Self-serve online trading has been around for a couple of decades, but that hasn't reduced the demand for stock brokers and financial planners.
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho
July 9, 2012 at 8:01 am
In this case, I don't entirely agree with you, Steve. In my work situation things go from hard to harder. 3 years ago we had 5 people in our IT department: 1 manager who occasionally programmed, and was excellent at hardware issues; 1 part time student who did our DBA work; and 3 developers (I was one of the 3). However, before that year was out we lost the student and he was never replaced. I became the accidental DBA, because I happen to know more about SQL Server than anyone else. Last year one of the 3 developers died, and has never been replaced. In March the IT manager quit and will not be replaced. That leaves just 2 of us, who are, remember, first developers. Neither of us have hardware experience. Neither of us are network administrators. Between the 2 of us, I did take 1 SQL Server administration course (for SQL 2005), so that also contributes to my being placed in the role. But using the terminology you introduced in your article, I guess my management thinks that a DBA is a tax, because believe me, they have no intention of replacing that student we lost 3 years ago. Now, perhaps in our situation that's not such a bad thing, because we only have 1 production SQL Server server, and 1 test SQL Server server. We have 5 servers in all, however most of those servers are old and have gone off of warranty, and my management isn't willing to pay the money to either replace the servers or renew the warranties. I live in fear that one of those old servers will die. If either the other developer or I were to leave, then it would really hurt the agency badly, and it certainly would put the person staying behind in a horrible situation (no more vacation, no sick leave allowed, etc).
Bottom line: if the agency is small enough, they don't want a DBA. They're not willing to pay that "DBA tax". They'll make anyone who has any IT experience be the developer, administrator, PC tech, help desk, network engineer and of course DBA.
Rod
July 9, 2012 at 8:04 am
Great article about addressing fear. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.:-D
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
July 9, 2012 at 8:15 am
djackson 22568 (7/9/2012)
Steve,I agree with the point that I believe you were intending to make. No arguments whatsoever.
However, a lot of people are worried about losing their jobs, and the reasons are similar enough that I expect to see some contrarian positions here. For example, a lot of highly educated people end up losing their jobs as part of cost cutting measures, only to be replaced by less costly, younger workers. The H1B visa is an atrocious attack on American high tech workers, sold to the public as a way to fill jobs "nobody wants" and "nobody is qualified for", and has been shown to be causing a decline in college students pursuing tech.
Am I afraid of technology replacing me? Not at all.
Do I understand why a lot of people are worried about thier jobs, oh yeah. Those who do may or may not benefit from improving themselves. It is possible to improve oneself out of a job as the cost to employ is raised.
Dave
WOW, very good points, Dave.
Rod
July 9, 2012 at 9:40 am
Jeff Moden (7/8/2012)
Excellent editorial, Steve! I wish I could give it a hundred stars because it really hits the nail on the head. There're too many people that spend way too much time doing the "Chicken Little" thing.
Thanks and glad you like it.
July 9, 2012 at 9:42 am
djackson 22568 (7/9/2012)
I agree with the point that I believe you were intending to make. No arguments whatsoever.
...
Good points, and I won't argue with you on this. There are any number of managers who do think the DBA is a tax and shouldn't be paid. They are happy to get by with less. Nothing to be done there, except to prove you're an asset, not an expense.
July 9, 2012 at 9:45 am
Doctor Who 2 (7/9/2012)
Bottom line: if the agency is small enough, they don't want a DBA. They're not willing to pay that "DBA tax". They'll make anyone who has any IT experience be the developer, administrator, PC tech, help desk, network engineer and of course DBA.
I'm not sure you're getting the same point I wanted to make. It isn't that you need a DBA, or that a DBA is a tax. It's that the DBA is often seen as a tax for a system, not providing value, but just cost. That could apply to any position.
The idea is that you want to prove you have value to the company, whatever your position. Make sure they see you as valuable, or I would advise you move on.
Side note: I wouldn't make my life/career decisions based on the impact to other employees. You can talk with them, but if you don't like the work, move on. Life is short, way too short to stick around if you don't have to in a position that doesn't work for you.
July 9, 2012 at 10:27 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (7/9/2012)
djackson 22568 (7/9/2012)
I agree with the point that I believe you were intending to make. No arguments whatsoever.
...
Good points, and I won't argue with you on this. There are any number of managers who do think the DBA is a tax and shouldn't be paid. They are happy to get by with less. Nothing to be done there, except to prove you're an asset, not an expense.
Agreed. The goal is to show you save more then you cost. Not always easy to do, but each year I seem to stumble across some way to save actual expenses that exceed what I get paid, not including what I actually "produce" each year as an Analyst and DBA.
One of my favorite examples is when we had to replace all of our time clocks, and I negotiated a price that saved us about 80% of my salary. Pretty easy to show your value that way!
Showing your value as a programmer, a DBA or other technical roles isn't as easy, because we don't normally have those kinds of opportunities for clear savings. How does one assign a value to backups, integrity checks, reindexing - unless something goes wrong first!
Dave
Dave
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