Steve Jones - SSC Editor (8/1/2012)
ralph.bacon (8/1/2012)
How do you get that message across to management who just see the SQL server running quite happily and a DBA as an additional expense with no perceived benefit - before total meltdown?Not sure you can, until there is some issue. When you can't fix something or it takes you a long time, or performance impacts users, you can document these things and use them as a case for getting some help or training, but other than that, not sure.
The flip side is how do you know when things will break? If it's not for 5 years, does it matter? Ten years? Is it worth paying someone for 5 years while everything works?
It's a tricky situation.
You probably don't want to pay a DBA in those cases, but, you should have a consulting firm on contract. They will have the people to call in to handle the emergency situations. They could also be contracted to come in monthly (or some other frequency) to review the servers and issue a report. This is how I've seen it done in small shops where the expertise is not in-house.