MCDBA - Whats it worth?
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I am currently on the MCAD / MCSD Track for programming, and with those tests out of the way, I could then follow the DBA track.
So, I am curious, right now, my job requires that I do EVERYTHING. I am the Programmer, the DBA, and I even help the guys that are MSCE / MCDBA Certified. So I ask, what do DBA's actually do? Sit around in the server rooms looking at servers waiting for one to crash while building backup plans? I just don't get it.
I understand in larger companies it might take a full-time person to manage all the servers in a production environment. We have about 5 systems here that require SQL Server, but yet we have not one (officially hired) as a DBA. Basically, if something goes wrong on the server, it's up to whoever developed that App or whoever maintains it to get it fixed. Crazy huh?
So, if there are any DBAs out there, what are your roles? Maybe I can justify getting a raise later
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Surely is a tricky question to answer. As the definition does vary from company to company. Even though I am not a DBA myself, I do a lot of the activities
. A DBAs work might range from backups, restores, manintenance planning, performance tuning, auditing the database, check on system states etc. Hence the facets of a DBA are many. And unlike in your scenario, you have one person to be accountable for the DB crash. Does it sounds convincing ?Vinod Kumar
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The real DBA will be measured by his or her ability to prevent desasters to happen or when they happen, that everything is back online in the quickest way possible.
So... If you are a good DBA, no one will ever notice you
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I'm a "do it all" developer on a system which is one system which accesses a reasonably big (160 GB) DB, but I have read a fair bit on this site and elsewhere about SQL DBs.
I would say the best DBAs will tend to make themselves idle, because they are smart enough to figure out the best (read quickest/cheapest) way to find the problem and solve a problem or automate backups and maintenance. Or there boss does not understand what they do for their money (or doesn't care!)
Like most things there is a hard way and an easy way. Busy people either:-
Don't have control of their workload; Are not smart enough to work out the easy way; Like to look busy.
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I guess all of this is really hypothectical, but it's fun to see the responses.
Vinod Kumar mentioned "...performance tuning, auditing the database...". How would a DBA (unless like many of us "Do-it Alls") know where to look to tweak performance or audit a DB if they do not understand the DB Structure?
It's kind of funny, I am very young yet, but when I have children, I can see my kids saying "Dad, all you need to do is restore the Database for my MS Word file and I can finish my report on the molecular structure of sugar."
Don't get me wrong, I love the fact the MS has made SQL Server so easy to use and maintain. I don't know how things were before 7.0, but I really enjoy database programming.
Thanks all for the comments!
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Hi there,
I do agree with the fact that one can performance tune the app / DB only when he/she understands the undelying data structure. Point well taken. But I;ve seen performance tuning as one of the basic requirement for modern DBA's. Companies do ask for such requirements. And as far as auditing is concerned it can be as simple as taking a server side profiler output spooled into a file automatically and later use the data for troubleshooting / performance tuning / or as a auditing purpose.
DB programming is fun. And with Yukon and CLR integration its gonna be exciting for DBA's
Vinod Kumar
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Thanks for clearing that up. Since I am a Developer, I haven't learned all the Auditing processes yet. But no doubt I do agree with you...DB programming is fun! I really enjoy it when I find a really easy way of doing things as opposed to "hard-coding" something in a language.
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