Posted by
Jason Massie 
on Friday, August 01, 2008 at 11:18 AM to
Professional Development, consolidation
284 Views |
5 Comments |
I have half written post called "The Rebirth of the DBA". I am not sure if it is going to make the cut. There is not enough time before I go on vacation and there is some good community discussion both in the comments and in the blogosphere(Brent O, Grant Fritchy, Pythian).
I will summarize really quick. I was halfway playing devil's advocate. While it is possible that they could write some really amazing software that could script the DBA, it is unlikely that they can totally do it. The DBA will still be around. The numbers may be less. Maybe substantially. The roles may change. Maybe drastically. Hell, your SQL Server 2015 VM may have a "cloud partition" in a physical table. There are other factors in the mix like consolidation, virtualization and LINQ\ORM that are also going to have to have an effect. It is all speculation but the only constant is change.
Posted by
Jason Massie on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 10:16 PM to
Professional Development
1184 Views |
12 Comments |
I'd like to retire a SQL Server DBA with 40 years experience but I don't think that will happen. The cloud is coming and it is bad news administrators, database or otherwise. Our government says the DBA field will grow by 37% between 2006 and 2016. I predict it will begin to level off in 5-7 years and begin reducing in 10 years or less. You have to remember that IT is measured in dog years and the government might not be up to speed on current technology like the "tubes".
Amazon\Google\Microsoft all have their v1.0 cloud database technologies. Amazon is actually in production. Amazon's other technologies are getting wide usage like S3. You basically just pay for CPU ticks, bandwidth and space. Yesterday, Intel, HP and Yahoo declared that they will not be left out of the party. The scariest news I have seen has also gotten the least amount of press. Microsoft has gotten into the hosting business under the cloud buzzword disguise. They are offering Exchange and Sharepoint hosting at a very completive price point. Email and intranet is the core and the thankless burden of corporate IT. Once email is in cloud, the database also begins to make sense. This is providing there is a cloud platform for application development like a Google App Engine.
The Best Case( or Worst Case depending on your perspective)
I think this technology has a long way to go. You really don't have all of the functionality yet. It is not battle tested. It doesn't have reporting functionality. It is not compliant. Not yet. Yet is the key word. What kind of reaction would you have gotten from a Sybase DBA's back in 1995 if you told them that they better reconsider their career path? There are still a few Sybase DBA's and Powerbuilder programmers out there. There are 7 openings nationwide right now.
Let's make some assumptions. The features get there. The availability gets there. The platform basically matures to as good or better than "classic" SQL Server and .Net. Now put yourself in the IT decision maker's shoes. No upfront capital expenses, no managing backups, and no patch management. Most company's core business is not IT. If they can remove their focus from managing and deploying IT, they sell and service more widgets. From the CXO's viewpoint, they can eliminate capex, reduce reoccurring costs and focus more on the core business.
Is this Science Fiction?
It may be. The "cloud" may turn out as useful as offshore outsourcing of software development. However, the biggest software and Internet companies are throwing a lot of resources at it. The result could be a hybrid with small to midsize apps in the cloud. The bigger apps in a blade\VM web tier and a bare iron data tier. However, it could be all cloud. All the way down to the end user's OS with your personal setting stored in an RFID implant. :-o Only time will tell.
Natural Selection
Change is good and inevitable. Otherwise, we would still be in caves. Follow the news and be agile. Even if these predictions are dead on, it is not going to happen over night. The Big Blue programmers did not go on to waiting tables and digging ditches.
Microsoft Online Services
SQL Server Data Services
Amazon Web Services
Google App Engine
Edit: Added MS marketing pic.
Posted by
Jason Massie on Monday, July 28, 2008 at 2:56 PM to
Professional Development
250 Views |
6 Comments |
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?
Posted by
Jason Massie on Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 12:11 AM to
Offtopic, Professional Development, social networking
203 Views |
0 Comments |
So you have a healthy subscription of blog feeds. You read the "legacy" NNTP groups. You might even have email alerts set up from google\yahoo! news to email you when SQL is mentioned in any article from sources like AP, Reuters and the other big boys. However, there is a good chance that by the time you get the scoop from those sources it is old or important new blogs or articles are sliding through the cracks.
Here are some good sources to find new feeds or 0-hour info on SQL Server:
FriendFeed (WWW,