August 10, 2010 at 8:13 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Bottom Line
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August 10, 2010 at 11:56 pm
DBA's are in a good position. We can fix problems that are highly visible. The flipside is that since we often take ownership of those problems, people associate DBAs with the problems and often times create a bias. Along with fixing those process problems, DBA's also need to work on marketing to the rest of the company. I had a former boss that insisted that a DBA needs to sell himself and his services as a "problem solver" and "solution provider."
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
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August 11, 2010 at 7:24 am
Not being a DBA, I don't know the answer to this. Do DBA's work independently or do they get permission first before making changes? AS a developer and "accidental" SQL Serverite, I have certain projects I have to work on. If I notice something that could be done better, I have to bring up to my boss and get permission to work on it. Do DBA's do the same or are they gunslingers going it alone?
Thanks.
August 11, 2010 at 7:38 am
OCTom (8/11/2010)
Not being a DBA, I don't know the answer to this. Do DBA's work independently or do they get permission first before making changes? AS a developer and "accidental" SQL Serverite, I have certain projects I have to work on. If I notice something that could be done better, I have to bring up to my boss and get permission to work on it. Do DBA's do the same or are they gunslingers going it alone?Thanks.
As a developer myself, this may not answer you but. . . where I work, all of the changes I wish to implement are done on a development environment which basically mirrors the production environment right down to the data. This means I can make changes however I please, then justify why by showing performance differences between the dev and the production environments. I imagine the same is true of a DBA.
August 11, 2010 at 9:00 am
I do tend to get permission, or more often, notify someone that I am planning a change. If for nothing else, if I make a mistake, I want to ensure someone else knows that a change occurred. I also document changes in a log.
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August 11, 2010 at 10:21 am
Steve's advice is good at many company levels. "Get close to the users." Like a couple of others so far I'm a developer. I concentrated on SQL because no one else wanted to do it.
Being very familiar with the data and how it is used can be very helpful. This is why when we automated a huge delivery fleet we had developers doing a rde-along program with the drivers. For sales force automation we hung out with, yuck, sales people. For poultry processing I have been on the production line schleping boxes of frozen meat. I come up to one of my customers user and say, "Teach me your job and everything about it that you hate."
Yeah you don't want to be like Milton Waddams[/url] in Office Space. "I want my stapler." Let people see what you do, and do it well.
ATBCharles Kincaid
August 11, 2010 at 11:13 am
Steve, I agree. Also, one of the biggest challenges I find is changing a supervisor's negative opinions or pre-conceived notions about DBA's in general. There is a lot of disinformation about us as people/workers out there, and trying to get your company to move past that and recognize the actual value we DBA's do bring to their organization can be a real challenge at times. Many supervisor's have pre-conceived notions that DBA's are prima-donna's and arrogant uncooperative control freaks, and that can get in the way many times of showing your real value and potential to them. However, it can be done, it just takes a little more time.:-D
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
August 11, 2010 at 11:25 am
OCTom (8/11/2010)
Not being a DBA, I don't know the answer to this. Do DBA's work independently or do they get permission first before making changes? AS a developer and "accidental" SQL Serverite, I have certain projects I have to work on. If I notice something that could be done better, I have to bring up to my boss and get permission to work on it. Do DBA's do the same or are they gunslingers going it alone?Thanks.
I think a good dose of it depends goes here. Is it a job that is failing and you have to troubleshoot it to fix it? Is there a production outage that can be fixed by a minor change? In these cases, sometimes it may be necessary to get things working again and then notify people of the changes made. You need to communicate the change - sometimes it is done after the fact.
If it is something that you notice is working incorrectly, but it is working, then you should notify somebody first. Get approval first and then work on it. If it is a personal project designed to help you do your job better - maybe it needs pre-approval maybe not.
Jason...AKA CirqueDeSQLeil
_______________________________________________
I have given a name to my pain...MCM SQL Server, MVP
SQL RNNR
Posting Performance Based Questions - Gail Shaw[/url]
Learn Extended Events
August 11, 2010 at 11:47 am
He says he was told early in his career to "find out what people disliked doing the most" and then doing it.
That's how I ended up shoveling out the septic system... :w00t:
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