Well personally I aim to be retired by then... 32 now 😉 (will let you know how I get on with this), but in the spirit of the article

Go back 10 years, what has changed, in all honesty, not that much - SQL Server 2000 oooohhhhh...... :hehe: SQL Server 2008 looks nicer, can have more resources, etc, but nothing spectacular!! We will probably have quality load balancing solutions, solid state disks and who knows maybe a 128bit version of SQL Server :w00t: I see the biggest changes coming on the BI side of things, been able to expand and drill with more easy, better ways of seeing the data, etc.

The only real difference I see happen, is that DBAs, database developers and infrastructure (especially since this is where the backup and recovery market is going) will be a bit more of a single role, but I doubt that much will change.

SQL Server (or Oracle or whatever) will never become self maintaining... The reason.... Microsoft makes a lot of money off of people that want to train up to be DBAs, companies bringing in Microsoft consultants, Gold partners, etc, etc. I just dont see this "perfect" self-sustaining SQL Server ever existing. The entire market behind the "new/next version" is that it improves on the previous one. If they made it perfect, they would have no effectively written themselves out of the market.......

We will still have the same problems, DBAs wanting to do it properly VS managers/business/companies wanting to do it on the cheap.