Eric M Russell (1/29/2014)
Even if the organization automates or outsources the more routine backup and monitoring tasks, there are so many other things a DBA can focus their time on. When things slow down, the gap between disaster recovery and troubleshooting, the DBA can create opportunity by promoting initiatives like upgrading to the next version of SQL Server or building a reporting data mart. That's the real value of a human DBA, the ability to analyze and innovate solutions outside the box.
Or even stepping out of the DBA box to build the automation for the network.
For example my app was on the way out when the Sr. Sys Admin discovered we had been reporting AD user licensing the wrong way for years. He asked me for help. I then built an automated system that works on a nightly to monthly basis to report logins, users, uptime status and multiple other things from over a hundred hosted domains. I also automated local backups for the hosted apps on the hosted servers.
That gives me a value added status to the company. I have always taken the time to see if I can do some sort of DBA task to make everyone work more efficiently. So we aren't dead if we can add value.
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Jim P.
A little bit of this and a little byte of that can cause bloatware.