Secondary skill for SQL DBA's

  • So it looks the ideal is DBA + everything else under the sun.

    no change there then.

    🙂

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  • And if you really want to get into the higher paying jobs - you need to know the business that you support.

    DBA + Operations (system admin, SAN, etc...) + Healthcare = great money 😀

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  • I figured I'd throw my $0.02 into this discussion.

    I agree with the other answers put forth, including "it depends," and you should definitely know the business you're getting into.

    Let me throw out this thought from my viewpoint: for me, personally, I don't have a secondary SQL skill. Rather, SQL is my secondary skill!

    I'm actually a full time webmaster and developer. I'm still relatively new to this job; I became the interim webmaster when our webmaster left the company back in March. I had the "interim" taken off my title a little over a month ago. I have development experience in a number of technilogies, including (but not limited to) HTML, ASP, ASP.NET, and VB. However, everything I do involves SQL in some way, shape, or form. While I'm no expert with SSIS, cubes, space management, etc., I do understand most of these concepts, as well as knowing how to write queries, views, stored procedures, building tables, databases, working with schemas, etc. etc. etc. I don't consider myself to be as knowledgeable about SQL as others in this forum -- Steve, Grant, Gail, et al -- but I know enough to be able to do my job (and do it well), and every once in a while, I'm able to answer someone's question here on these forums.

    I suppose the moral to my story is something like this: why limit yourself to just SQL technologies? There's nothing that says other technologies can supplement your SQL background. In fact, I'm guessing that something like that could make you just as valuable.

    In any case, I hope this is helpful. Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

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  • I think Ray has a great take. I came into the DBA world from both an admin (early) and developer (next) worlds. Those "secondary skills" were extremely important in a few jobs. I've been able to help web developers figure things out because I understood how protocols and networking interacted with the web server. I've helped Exchange people understand why SQL couldn't send mail.

    It definitely depends on where you work, and I'd say that you ought to be sure you can add value to your environment with other skills, be it development, admin, business analysis, etc.

    If you don't have something outside of SQL Server, I'd still lean towards SAN/disk technologies first. Those are important to ensuring your performance is done well, after T-SQL tuning.

  • I agree with everyone SQL DBA + SSIS +SSRS

  • For what it's worth, I should probably also mention that I'm not purely technical. I also have professional technical writing experience. As I like to tell people, "I'm a techie who actually knows how to write." 🙂

    Edit: . . . and edit! (Edited for spelling!)

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  • Guys,

    Great discussion. Thanks a lot for detail discussion

    recently I have seen some job post SQL DBA + SAP Basis and good PAY 🙂

    I understand that depends on project and what kind of project ur into

    Rajesh Kasturi

  • I say SQL DBA

    + the soft skills like Grant Suggested

    + SSIS,SSRS,SSAS,Performance tuning,Hardware,Virtualization

    + Anything and everything you can get exposed to

    I've seen many DBA's try and limit themselves and fail. I've also seen DBA's loose focus on what is important. The way I have exposed myselft to other areas is to look where the need of the current job has. For example, If my company plans on getting more involved in sharepoint I'll start studying sharepoint. This also gets you real world experience with the technology and not just read about it.

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