Editorials

Calling All SQL Server Accidental DBAs

Calling All SQL Server Accidental DBAs
We’ll be running our virtual workshop next week – and you can attend from the comfort of your desk, your home or… well, just about anywhere! I’ll be teaching the workshop and we’ll be going through things to know, things to monitor, things to do as an Accidental DBA, one that is asked to do the DBA work, but not on a full-time basis. I really have enjoyed doing this workshop, we’ve had such great response from all sorts of DBAs, those that are looking for where to start, those looking for a few tidbits on where to go next, etc.

I hope you’ll attend – and I’ll be there to take and answer questions, live. The workshop is on December 30, so while you’re winding down the year, you can kick back and relax and put together a plan for 2010 and your servers. We’ll also be adding a free month to everyone’s membership that attends. So, if you’re a member, we’ll extend it. If not, we’ll activate you.

Hope to see you there – register today to save your spot and you’ll be all set! There’s a quick video on the site about the workshop, and you can even download the outline and all sorts of other information. Check it out here.

Click here to get registered.

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Driving Your Skills Forward as a DBA
Lisa
writes – "It’s difficult in the IT field to be solely focused on being a DBA. As a good DBA you need to understand the technical architecture of your environment, understand the underlying O/S that supports the database solution. Then there’s the data connectors and all of the applications that connect. Being a DBA is much like being a traffic cop. You need to understand peak times of day/week/month, understand client/user requirements and business justifications as well as the technology that supports it.


I have found that if you have those skills, you can be very valuable to a company. So, learn the skills to support the network/server infrastructure and you will soon learn that you have a job most anywhere.

One really important thing to note, especially in heavy compliance environments the DBA is usually the gatekeeper between environments and is responsible for supporting production and answering to auditors. This is how you make your case to the business. The person implementing the changes into production cannot/should not be the one testing them as it is a conflict of interest. There is a unique sales pitch to having the DBA on the System Admin team in that the DBA isn’t reporting to the Application developers or their leads.

Make the case to get a DBA that will manage and implement the Q/A compliance portion of code promotion and you will soon find that management will fully agree.

This is one of the few times that compliance can make our lives easier!"

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