Grow Your Skills

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Grow Your Skills

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

SSC Guru

Points: 734418
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December 1, 2012 at 4:56 pm

#145730

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Grow Your Skills

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Revenant SSC-Forever Points: 42467 More actions · Answer 1

I am a dev, not a DBA. My observation of the DBA side of things is limited to the Microsoft cloud which encompasses Azure (or what was formerly known as Azure), Cosmos, Office 365 and few others. Thanks to Autopilot, each DBA can manage thousands of servers.

Are there fewer DBAs?

No - the Cloud now has over 100k servers and is growing fast. Autopilot allows DBAs to handle the growth, but so far as I know it did not make anybody redundant.

OCTom SSChampion Points: 11785 More actions · Answer 2

I'm interested to know what would be considered a "hard part" of the job.

Miles Neale SSChampion Points: 13147 More actions · Answer 3

There is a echo in the world of technology and you have to adjust to it. The echo says "The newest technology will cause a huge reduction in the number of IT people!" Every few years this rings out and those who pay the IT bill pray it is true, and the planners start planning, and budget analysts start analyzing the budget. And they call the IT people to write more systems to support the planning and the budgeting and they hire more IT people to determine how much the IT staff will shrink.

One the brighter site, retooling, and refreshing the skills is far better than crystalizing in frozen and forgotten technology that will cause you to become a fossil. Learn something, it is good for your heart, your head, your wage, and your future.

If I was still holding fast in the first skill set I used on the job I would be writing batch COBOL or 360 Assembler. However I knew early on that I would either march forward with technology or stand in the past and watch it fade further and further beyond the horizon.

Peace!

M.

Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 734418 More actions · Answer 4

OCTom (12/3/2012)
I'm interested to know what would be considered a "hard part" of the job.

Tuning queries, designing better databases or models, import/export in custom formats, finding patterns in data, or designing queries that help visualize the information in data for your particular industry. Writing better code.

Things beyond backup, restore, installation, checking logs, setting up alerts. These things are the "easy" parts.

Miles Neale SSChampion Points: 13147 More actions · Answer 5

Steve,

Could I add that one of the real challenges is building meaningful and usable dimensions in OLAP cubes. At times it can drive a person crazy.

M.

Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!

Revenant SSC-Forever Points: 42467 More actions · Answer 6

Steve, isn't finding patterns part of the job of business analysts?

Dalkeith Hall of Fame Points: 3687 More actions · Answer 7

I suspect that databases could become more of a generalists tools

All jobs change best to try and change with it.

I think programming and IT will probably be one of the last areas of work to be automated but automated it will be. The good thing is that it's expanding as quickly as its being automated.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 734418 More actions · Answer 8

Revenant (12/3/2012)
Steve, isn't finding patterns part of the job of business analysts?

Somewhat, but also the ways in which we look for patterns, adding algorithms or new queries might be considered part of the DBA role. I'd think it was in conjunction with a business person.

Diligentdba 46159 Default port Points: 1494 More actions · Answer 9

Learning more does not necessarily mean you land great gigs. It has to match your needs and the needs of somewhere who has similar and sometimes yes that is usually a stroke of luck. I am finding out that the inability to travel or take up consulting gigs away from home is a significant obstacle to growth, unfortunately. Wondering if anyone has had that experience.

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1003853 More actions · Answer 10

I can't speak for anyone else but every time (and without exception) that I've seen a company that I've worked for do anything with outsourcing, it has always costed a wole lot of extra work on the inside.

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)