bradmcgehee@hotmail.com (12/12/2011)
My editorial got edited after I wrote it, and one important part of the message I was trying to get across apparently got deleted. In the original draft of my editorial, I was making the assumption that over a long period of time, 50, 100, 500 years, that the role of DBA administrator would probably go away as software could very possibly take over such tasks. So my question "Will the DBA role evolve naturally from being a "caretaker of data", to "interpreter of data", for the good of society?" is not asking about now, or the next few years, but about the future. The goal of the editorial was to be "whimsical" and "thought-provoking", but that part of the editorial got edited out.
I guess the data in the editorial wasn't properly safeguarded, eh? 😛
And, yes, as systems evolve and become more self-correcting, et al, the duties of dealing with them will change. It's been a long time, for example, since I had to administer a Windows for Workgroups 3.11 network on a thin-coax token ring. That set of skills isn't really applicable any more. At the same time, building and administering a more modern network hasn't become simpler, it's just become different. I think database administration will go the same way. Years ago, backup/restore administration, and the details of restoring a database from tape backups of full, diff and log data, to a point in time, was a complex skillset. Now, I generally pick the database in SSMS, right-click, open the restore wizard, pick the point in time in a field, and click "Okay". Flash drives are in the process of eliminating fragmentation (physical and index) as a consideration. But DBAing has become a more complex skillset, not less.
So, yeah, the skills will change. It's just a question of how much.
As for 500-year time spans, who knows? 500 years ago was the 1600s. The printing press had revolutionized data dissemination, but it was still primarily being stored (outside the human head) in ink-on-paper, and analysis was a matter of decades of education. Modern ideas of electronic storage and retrieval would have been inconceivable. Not only outside of what could be imagined, but outside of any need that could be imagined.
500 years ago, Adam Smith was over 100 years in the future, and John Meynard Keynes was over 400 years away. Modern business and government weren't even a twinkle in their fathers' eyes, as it were. And those two (government and modern business) are the two biggest driving forces behind data storage, dissemination, et al.
So, 500 years from now? I'm sure it will be radically different, but I'm also sure it will still required skilled people somewhere in the mix, not just more automation.
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