Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • The Ten Commandments for DBAs

    I like lists, and this list certainly caught my eye: the 10 commandments of database management. It’s from a lead database architect that has experience with a variety of RDBMS’s as well as NoSQL technologies. It’s an interesting list, and one that tries to cover all the aspects of a DBA’s job.

    It’s a good list and for the most part it’s how I’ve tried to manage systems throughout my career. I believe in monitoring systems. I believe in testing backups. I believe in change management, though it doesn’t have to be heavy-handed. I think automation is key, and certainly DBAs should understand the pros and cons of their platform.

    However, I don’t know that I think upgrades should be completed for systems without some evaluation of the benefits and risks. These days, with releases of database platforms coming every 2-3 years, I’m not sure that I would want to upgrade many of my systems to each version. I might skip every 2-3 versions and upgrade rarely.

    I recognize that some of these can be outside the control of the DBA, but to the best of their ability, I do think a DBA should be looking to help developers, secure their systems, and choose the best systems to meet their needs, given whatever restrictions their organization puts on them.

    I don’t know that this is the best list of commandments for a DBA, but it’s certainly a great start. It’s also a good basis on which to conduct yourself as a DBA if you don’t have a well defined code you follow.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 1.9MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn. 

  • Prepping for 2015

    It’s important that you regularly work on your career to continue to grow, and these days, ensure that you can find a job. It doesn’t matter if you’re a doctor, an electrician, a banker, or a technologist, the world seems to be regularly changing many of our jobs. Whether we need to deepen our current skills or learn a few new related ones, I think it’s just prudent to continue to develop yourself as a professional.

    I think it’s fun as well when you can learn a new skill or two.

    I ran across a post that talks about the top skills that will be in demand in 2015. There are 9 items, and while you should take this information with a grain of salt, it is an interesting list in a few ways. I would guess it’s fairly representative of those areas that recruiters are having a hard time finding people, so while your SQL Server, C#, Javascript, etc. skills are still valuable, adding one or more of these might help you feel a bit more confident you could get a new job if you needed one in 2015.

    PowerShell is the first skill listed, and I think it’s important. If you work in the Unix world, you probably already know how to script in one of the shells, and for Windows people, PowerShell is the equivalent. Whether you manage one server or 100, this can help you more consistently handle your environment. For SQL Server people, there are some very handy uses for Powershell, especially for file type operations or DR, so I think it’s worth learning.

    Many of the other skills like cloud computering, O365 and Google Apps, compliance, mobile, are more buzzword driven, but that doesn’t mean they’re not valuable skills. Managers hire people and write checks, and if they think some of these areas are worth implementing projects in, they’ll be jobs available.

    The last item listed is soft skills, and if you had to pick one area to work on, this would be the one I’d recommend for most of you. Soft skills translate to any company and any position. They are more and more important these days as scarcity of jobs mean that employers have choices, and when all your candidates have similar technical skills, the things that stand out are the people that communicate better, act as team players and can build bonds with others.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.7MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.

  • The Real Scary DBAs

    I ran into someone recently that told me they were scared at their job. This person had built a number of ETL jobs to move data around between systems. They were trained as a developer, but had a little experience, got sucked into working with SQL Server, and had made a career without really considering themselves a DBA. They seemed a bit bewildered that they hadn’t messed up the data in any of their employer’s systems.

    I’ve met quite a few people like that, who seem amazed to be trusted to accomplish the work they do on a regular basis. It’s good that many people can go through a career in SQL Server and successfully accomplish the things their employer needs done. However there’s no shortage of “scary DBAs” out there that are in over their heads and do cause damage to data and systems.

    I see questions at SQLServerCentral on a regular basis that scare me. Not because the question is particularly hard, but because the person asking the question seems to be trusted with way more responsibility than they are capable of handling. I’m glad they’re asking questions, but often the additional questions they ask, or the lack of understanding they display about the answers have me worried. It’s not that these people are stupid, but often they don’t have the experience to do the job they’re assigned.

    All of us have things to learn. Many of us continue to learn on the job, often as we’re getting work done. I think that’s a valid way of going through your technology career and I hope most of you continue to improve your skills on a regular basis. However there are quite a few people that have little aptitude for their chosen field, learn the barest minimum to get by, and often implement code and configurations without understanding what they are doing.

    Those are the really scary DBAs and I’m amazed that so many of them are trusted by their employers to actively manage organizational data.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.2MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn. feed

    The Voice of the DBA podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music.

  • Advice for Steve Jones

    I was tagged by Mike Walsh in a blog post entitled: 4 Attitudes I Wish I Had Earlier as a DBA. It’s a look back at Mike’s career and a few things that he wishes he’d known earlier in his career. These are four mental ways of viewing the world, soft skills that might have made more successful, or successful faster. Mike asked a few people to share their thoughts, and there are some good ones from Brent Ozar, Erin Stellato, and my favorite Aunt Kathi.

    I’ve got lots of advice for the young Steve Jones. I’ve had a successful career, with few regrets, and I think a small number of decisions I would undo. However I have some advice for myself, based on things I’ve learned, or things I’m still learning.

    There is no Plan
    There is no master business plan, and the people making decisions don’t necessarily make the best decisions. They’re not right, but they are in charge. Argue your position, give your professional opinion, and when the decision is made, support it and make it work.

    Take a breath
    Before you rush into decisions or actions, especially in a crisis, take a breath. It’s better to be a little slower than compound one mistake with another.

    We’re not saving babies
    Most of us don’t work on systems that affect human life. If you do, that’s fine, but for most of us our jobs aren’t that critical. Learn to keep things in perspective, and try to help your boss remember that as well.

    Be your own person
    Be honest with yourself. What do you like, and more importantly, what do you not like. It’s easy to get caught up in what others think. It’s easy to let yourself get drawn into a path that is not your own. Choose your own path, but more importantly, learn where your path really leads.

    I’ve written a bit more, a slightly longer post on my blog with a few more items. However these are the pieces of advice I’d have liked to have learned earlier in my career. Perhaps hearing one of these items will help one of consider yourself a success a bit sooner in career.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.7MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn. feed

    The Voice of the DBA podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music.