I agree with you completely. I have stated this too many times already but SQL Server causes some to believe that the production DBA is not necessary. However, being a production DBA is not just code tuning. That should be done by any good SQL developer. There are far too many other considerations as you mention in your article that a DBA needs to consider and be planning for.

The most interesting aspect of this article is that some believe 2005 is going to make things easier on the DBA. I disagree and believe it will be just the contrary. I guess time will tell. My guess is that you will see a higher end SQL Server production DBA produced with this release and their value will increase to that of the standard Oracle DBA.

Thanks for the article.