An exponential advance in technology is an understatement. Think of how far we come in just the last 50 years or even five years. Think about how young this World Wide Interweb thingy is. Does anyone remember UUNet? How about Windows NT not being a stable enough platform to build a business application? Twitter is barely 5 years old and built on 140 characters. It is amazing in both its simplicity and contribution to information.

Look at your parents and think about the technology advances that they have seen. My mother still cries when she has to touch a computer because she is afraid that she will break it. Now consider how your children view technology and the advances in technology that they will see in their lifetime. I am still amazed that I can send an email from my SQL Server and have it show up in three different locations at the same time including my smart phone with a dual core processor. Think for a minute about the complexity of that operation.

There is one thing that I was taught early in my career from an old DBA, design every database to last thirty years including prototypes. It is that type of long term thinking that helps us out as DBA’s. Developers and End Users want to see the data now. We have to see the data as it will be in the years to come. It is one of the skills that set us apart.

There will always be a need for the Keepers of Data just as there always has been throughout Human History. We just use new and improved tools.