What Kind of DBA Are You?
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We've all seen different descriptions, production or development, T-SQL developer, BI developer, ETL developer, etc. But I've got a new one, at least one for me. Or it's what I'll be shooting for if I head back to the full-time DBA world.
I saw a Q&A with Ray Ozzie at the MIX07 event and one of the things that struck me was his way of layering the next generation of software and services. At the top are there are the apps, the exciting stuff that people use. Below that are the foundation services, identity, various content elements, Windows Live APIs, etc. These are the things that you "mash up" or put together to build the top level. And at the bottom, the computation, storage, communications, the basics of servers and storage. The boring, basic level.
That's me. The boring, basic DBA.
I'm kind of joking, but not really. I've always enjoyed being the operations guy, the guy who checks logs, makes sure things are working, and in general is insurance. I monitor and watch, and then really earn my paycheck when things break and I have to scramble to fight the fire. I tend to like the jobs that most people find boring.
It was funny talking with some of the Colorado Springs DBAs and they were production guys, but had been hired with the chance to re-architect, design, and in general mold systems. They weren't happy with the restraints placed on them to maintain the status quo and in general do the production DBA work. I can understand that, but that's the job I'd like. And I think I could work with those guys if they went into the engineering or development areas and I could have production.
To me the DBA job is pretty well defined: you work for stability and control as a production guy (or gal, not to be sexist since there are some very talented women working as DBAs) or you go to the creative, problem solving world of development. You might get different slices (SSRS v SSIS for example), but you pretty much have a similar job everywhere as a DBA.
But I'm wondering what others think of their jobs. How do you see yourself fitting into the DBA world?
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Another great post Steve!
I like to think about myself as a "database specialist". Definitely a service person rather than a "creative nerd", however when things are going smoothly in production for very long time I get bored as I really enjoy exercising my analytical muscle.
Anatol Romanov
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That was a good one.
I was a DBA for years and now have moved to Development. I have always liked my DBA job so much that I have started missing it
This job kept me on my toes..Making me ensure things are alright, unlike a Development job where you have work when there are projects else...!!!!
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Quite funny. Yesterday on my way home in the car, I was rambling on what kind of DBA I am. And what different kinds of DBAs there are.
I am sitting in production. We are understaffed, with the ability to hire consultants to do specific jobs. We administrate both MS SQL Server (2K & 2K5) and Oracle 10.2 RAC with huge development department and no or close to none standard software.
Im most likely a boring monitoring DBA with an growing overhead of project administration.
This has the effect that I only have time to take care of smaller issues, and depending in my needs I hire a:
Performance DBA
Installation DBA
or a Developer DBA
My question yesterday was: Am I a DBA anymore? And what makes a DBA a DBA?
Ib-René Kruse
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I'm what most people would call a development dba. I tune indexes, rewrite scripts, monitor performance and suggest better ways of doing things.
I have a say in the design of tables and databases, I review code before it goes onto the production server and provide suggestions if it doesn't meet the required standard.
Don't ask me to backup or restore a database. I'll have to look the syntax up in books online. I couldn't handle watching jobs, I'd be bored out of my mind in a week
Personally, I'll call myself a database developer, because that's the best description of what I do.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverabilityWe walk in the dark places no others will enter
We stand on the bridge and no one may pass -
..a bit of everything, as I'm a one man band!
Interesting about the Production DBA doing a bit of development..
I worked for a big Credit Card company, and they had a team of developers who'd never been near a support call and were producing a diabolical set of scripts - so error logging, no transactions, silent failures...
I suggested that they rotate the developers onto 24hr call out to give them some perspective on what a Production System needs.
Do they still teach the whole "$1 to fix a bug in dev $10 in testing $100 in UAT and $1000 in live"?
So while you might not produce the whizziest new-fangled bit of code, you won't get the wrath of the support line when they have to spend 7 days over christmas re-running a load of imports that had been silently failing for a month...
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Probably a basic boring DBA too but I am also a web application developer and database designer as we're not big enough for a full time SQL DBA and this provides the stimulation and creative outlet I need. Though with the talk of moving the main production system from Oracle Unix to the Windows SQL version for cost reasons I may well be busier as a DBA soon!
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I think the term DBA is very confusing and it seems like we all have our own definition of the job role. I am a DBA for a mobile phone company but have worked for 3 other major organization, each time employed as a DBA but each time under a slightly different definition of DBA. What I have learnt is that you need to position yourself in a company where you are the expert in everything your developers, systems and network guys are not. For example, you systems/network guys may be expert in storage equipment but have no idea how the database deals with disc space and memory.
With regard to the "boring" statement I disagree, I would say that just about all SQL Server DBA's are currently upgrading systems from 00 to 05. We have all experienced this as a pretty big challenge; I have to say I didn’t feel bored when I switched an SQL 00 phone card payment system off and the new SQL 05 server on with 10 managers standing behind me! I would say if your bored at that point, your in the wrong job mate!
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Great editorial Steve!
My most popular blog post to date: Which "Flavor" DBA Are You? asks the same question. I came up with three "flavors".
You are a Systems, Operations, or Production Support DBA (with a dash of Application Support thrown in) in my model. I'm a Database Developer.
:{> Andy
Andy Leonard, Chief Data Engineer, Enterprise Data & Analytics
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I'm everything!
I'm the "goto guy" whenever there is any questions or jobs regarding SQL. At least that has been my job at most places I have been (outside a short stint as a T-SQL developer as a consultant with a major bank).
Currently I do about 50% operations stuff, 50% development. In that development time I also include development I do to make my life as the operations guy easier.
In the 90s I did mostly fire fighting of systems that where not working right, or server downs, as a consultant. I think that was the most rewarding time for me as a DBA, as the businesses where very happy when I got the systems up and running (and lord do I have some horror stories, 72 hours straight working, including building a new Intel based server since there was a bug in the ODBC software for the Alpha servers).
And the 2000 to 2005 upgrade wasn't that bad! Could be if you have a lot of DTS packages though, especially if you don't want to run them as legacy DTS packages.
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I work as the only person who functions in a dba role for a mid-sized company (300 mill. annual sales) with 30+ servers that have MS SQL 200 or 2005 on them. The scope of my responsibilites include data warehousing (all BI functions included) and what we used to call 'systems analyst' functions which keeps me from focusing on traditional dba tasks only. As a result I title myself as a 'Manager of Data Systems'.
It is getting harder to keep up with everything and sometimes I wonder I am going to be able to continue functioning with such broad responsibilities, but I consider myself fortunate to have this job as I am in my 50's and have been with the same company almost 24 years. Besides, I like what I do!
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Boring is good and there is nothing wrong with it. I wasn't hired to change the world, but to be the sheriff as the wild-west turned into civilization. I make recommendations to developers and give them and management my standard tip list for developers. If they follow them great. If not, it creates boring work
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Great article Steve. I think the trend is changing as technology changes. You obviously have the choice of becoming which ever you like to be i.e. be a operations dba, development dba, performance dba, dba architect, etc. But in today's world, you need to be able to do more than just operations. The model is changing from being reactive to being proactive. So, a production dba's role changes from being reactive to proactive and this means to be involved in deisgn reviews on existing projects to share lessons learned from past projects that went wrong or did not scale in production. I like to call myself a production dba/database architect. Apart from supporting production systems, I like to be involved in the performance collection metrics, learn new features, tricks, and be involved in new projects and especially have a say, in order to build scalable DB systems, and not just support systems. Otherwise, it's a self inflicted wound that keeps coming back. I am tired of seeing systems being designed with poor design on the DB side.
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I've been a production DBA for about 5 years with the typical responsibilities of handling performance problems, availability, backups, and security. Really, I see problem solving as the key to the importance of a production DBA... finding root issues and resolving them so they don't happen again. I think everyone uses a DBA as a general SQL resource if they have questions regarding SQL development or integration services. (at least I hope they do)
I'm currently transitioning into a development dba/architect role where I hope to be at the very front of development and more involved in design to hopefully make the production DBA job a lot more boring. Really a DBA is doing their job best when they aren't doing anything.
(I can dream, can't I? :rolleyes -
I was kind of surprised at the response, but nice to see everything thinking about their career. And I'm glad that I'm not the only one that likes the relatively boring, production DBA job.
I will say that of the last 3 or 4 DBA jobs I've had, the production side is pretty much the same job everywhere. New schemas, some large, some small shops, but the basic job, monitoring, troubleshooting performance, etc. is the same. It requires thought and effort to do well, but it's not terribly exciting to me.
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