What Makes a Great Database Professional?

I think a good database professional knows their domain inside and out. Whether you are a classic production support DBA, a SQL developer, an ETL guy, or a mutant database guy, you have to know your stuff just to be considered "good". This is or should be expected so that alone doesn't necessarily make you great.

What crosses you over into "greatness"? This is just my opinion but I think it is being a generalist even if you are a specialist. When the sh!t hits the fan and all fingers are pointed at SQL,  not only do you have to identify that it is or is not a SQL problem but you have to prove it. How do you prove it is not a SQL problem? You find where the packets are being dropped. You find the latency in the SAN. You find the bad .Net code. When you can do that, you get elevated to "Goto guy" status.

I am not going to pretend to be the goto guy. Maybe back on NT4\Win2k\VB6\ASP but I have had the SQL goggles on for the past couple of years. I am planning on changing that this year but I am not sure how yet. Maybe OS. I would like to get really good at Windows Server 2008. However, being good C# in VS2008 would be a nice asset too. Hmm...

What do you think makes a good database professional a great one? What non-db skills would you like to add to your arsenal at the expert level?

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This is an excellent post. Some people are unaware of the breath and depth of knowledge that will be required to be a good database professional. I can start with these:
1: System Center 2:Hyper-V 3: Enterprise Storage Networks. 4:Network Protocols 5: Application Protocols 6:Visual Studio,CLR, C#

posted @ Monday, July 28, 2008 3:37 PM by Emmanuel Anumonwo

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One word: Depth.

Just as you say, being able to be a kind of generalist beyond your specialty makes a big difference. I also belive that thinking 'in depth' about your are of expertise makes a huge difference. Once you master the 'inner domain' of T-SQL, you need to know how T-SQL lives in MSSQL; what's different in MSSQL? and MSSQL runs on Windows. And the storage might be local, DFS, SAN, etc.

Working from the 'inside' to the 'outside' gives you added skills many people don't have. It can make you an true 'goto guy.'

posted @ Monday, July 28, 2008 4:54 PM by Mike Amundsen

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wow, I read your "using visual interdev 6" book a long time ago.

posted @ Monday, July 28, 2008 5:36 PM by Jason Massie

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(Saw on Twitter.) I think a rare but important trait is for a DBA to have sufficient interpersonal skills to get along well with both the software developers and the network team. DBAs with ONLY great technical skills can tick everyone off, and the goal of technical excellence cannot be achieved.

posted @ Monday, July 28, 2008 8:18 PM by cio007

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I second cio007's comments. I've found that my skills as a DBA are good, but that its my ability to work with people and break down technical topics when talking to non-techies that's really made me valuable where I am (or so they say :p)

posted @ Tuesday, July 29, 2008 7:11 AM by Jim

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Really good DBAs are jacks of all trades. They get on a conference call or go into a meeting, and within a few minutes, they can identify where the real application problem is (network? storage? app? database?) and show some basic proof.

Those kinds of DBAs are like practical versions of architects. You call in an architect when you're planning, and you call in a DBA when the plans didn't work out the way you planned. (Or at least, that's the attitude companies seem to have!)

posted @ Tuesday, July 29, 2008 9:13 AM by Brent O.

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Comments from the following blog entry: http://www.postsaver.org/tags/etl

posted @ Saturday, November 01, 2008 3:05 PM

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