krowley and BenWard,

I hear you! The approach you suggest of keeping production DBA responsibilities in-house and outsourcing the development functions makes perfect sense. However, my education, experience, expertise, and interest is in application and database development. For some in my position, outsourcing skills that we have and enjoy while maintaining responsibility for skills that we have yet to develop--especially skills as critical as those underdiscussion--may not appeal.

Your approach is also related to the issue of trust. Can we trust the people or organizations that we would outsource production DBA responsibilites to? That's a very reasonable concern that each person has to answer for himself or herself. In our case, the production DBA we hired sat on the board of the Professional Association of SQL Server, has been a Microsoft MVP for several years running, is well-known on the Microsoft/PASS speaking circuit, and has proven himself knowledgeable and reliable on the projects he's completed for us. We decided that we're better off hiring him do the things that he does well while allowing me to continue doing the things that I do well.

Again, your approach is equally valid. The important thing is that, at the end of the day, our employer's data is adequately protected.

Thanks!

Chris O'Connor