Jack

Here are the answers to your questions.

How good is the DBA is at automating things?

Unknown at this point but supposedly very good.

Are you willing to put into place and pay for a third-party monitoring package.

A third party monitoring package is in place for the Windows Network but not specifically for SQL databases.

Do you expect the DBA to analyze and fix code if deadlocks are occurring?

No, the code if from a third party. Just notification that deadlocks are an issue.

Do you expect to the DBA to performance tune queries

No, this would be up to the third party that provides the application software.

What do you mean by "SSC questions"?

Could you provide me with some idea as to what the DBA would do during the day and why they would have to spend this time each day?

I noticed that you are an application developer. Do you have comments on the pros or cons of an application written in Access and Visual Basic for Applications using MSSQL as the backend database?

Thanks