September 2, 2012 at 8:10 pm
TheSQLGuru (1/29/2010)
I know a production DBA who just moved to a new job because he had gotten his former company so stable and everything running so routinely that he became bored and unchallenged.
Nothing wrong with that - but, it would tell me that company isn't growing and expanding. A company that is growing and expanding will be bringing in new systems, new applications, building out their DR site, etc...
In fact, a growing and expanding company would definitely have lots of opportunities for growth - especially in the areas of system integration, data warehouse, reporting and other BI related processes.
And just about the time you get caught up with all of that, is the time you start rolling out the old hardware and building out the replacement systems where you have the opportunity to take what you have learned over the past 3-5 years and apply that to the new systems.
Now, if you are really stuck in a 'Production Support DBA' role - where you cannot even think about working in any of the other areas then I would say he did the right thing. That can become very boring - very quickly...
Jeffrey Williams
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September 3, 2012 at 4:24 pm
As far as Systems Admins taking over sql server support duties, I think that can work as far as infrastructure and backups ( where backups are handled by something other than native sql tools ).
We've gone down that road twice, due to decisions being made by IT managers in the absence of any DBAs or DBA managers. The first time native sql backups and log shipping were replaced by Commvault backups administered by Systems Admins. This time we're headed towards Netapp snap backup and its not clear yet if the DBAs we now have will be involved in that or not.
Our System Admins have so far steadfastly refused to get involved in the nuts and bolts of sql server which means they could not manage maintenance like reindexing and update statistics in any reasonable way.
September 3, 2012 at 8:01 pm
Indianrock (9/3/2012)
As far as Systems Admins taking over sql server support duties, I think that can work as far as infrastructure and backups ( where backups are handled by something other than native sql tools ).We've gone down that road twice, due to decisions being made by IT managers in the absence of any DBAs or DBA managers. The first time native sql backups and log shipping were replaced by Commvault backups administered by Systems Admins. This time we're headed towards Netapp snap backup and its not clear yet if the DBAs we now have will be involved in that or not.
Our System Admins have so far steadfastly refused to get involved in the nuts and bolts of sql server which means they could not manage maintenance like reindexing and update statistics in any reasonable way.
Have they ever tried doing a restore to make sure it all works as advertised? Any DR drills to make sure DR is actually working?
--Jeff Moden
September 3, 2012 at 9:07 pm
If you're referring to the Netapp snap manager for sql stuff, no we haven't instituted it yet. As a production DBA I was all set to take some training and/or do extensive reading to get familiar with the software, but now I'm hearing my manager say he doesn't want his DBAs involved in backups and restore -- he views that as infrastructure team duties -- at least in our environments with large sql databases.
So we're at a bit of a standoff, Systems Admins wanting to do netapp snaps for everything except databases and DBAs being told not to get involved.
October 24, 2013 at 11:49 am
I've seen some of the responses to this topic and I want to provide a bit more of a balanced response. There will always be demand for both Support and Dev guys. There's money in both. How much you get depends on the amount of expertise you build and where you want to take your career. If what you're trying to do is become a great Production Support guy, then you're probably on the right track. If what you're trying to do is launch a Development career, the answer is more like "maybe."
From experience running Production Support teams, the best Support folks come with good Development backgrounds and the converse isn't necessarily true (you won't become a great Developer by doing Prod Support, though you might be more conscientious about the SQL you write). Sure, there is something to be learned for Developers in Support. For example, you'll have a better view of how systems are structured and will have some insight into the environments where applications run, but unless you're doing something like Level 3 Support (bug-fixes), don't expect to be able to code elegant solutions. Even with Level 3 Support, the design decisions are already made for you. I would say, if you want to launch a Dev career, get a Dev position. There's plenty of them out there.
Prod Support has processes and a discipline of its own. These are complementary, at best, with what you'd learn when doing Development. For example, in Support, you won't really learn how to put together code in an Agile process, but you will learn how to effectively manage incidents and restore service quickly.
If you'd like to learn more about Production Support, check out http://www.prodsupportblog.com.
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