Career in DBA

A DBA career path is about thinking in strategic terms .  What  other skills can a DBA  develop their  in a  complex database server environment?

A rising trend  in the database server world is  a  hybrid of DBA and application administrator.

A common source of pressure is increased demand for DBA time but decreasing budgets for DBAs. Thinking clearly about career progression is a challenge. Here are some ideas.

Managing Enterprise infrastructure across the application stack is increasing in demand .  In an earlier post - DBA supertech . Specialise or generalise?   I introduced the idea of thinking beyond the database server.

A critical DBA skillset to develop is interacting at the Application, RDBMS OS, Hardware, network and storage layer.

How do you progress?

Basic DBA

1) Solid DBA skills  - backup and recovery, basic admin, security management, performance tuning, T-SQL. Read more on I want to become a DBA. What should I first learn ?

2) Dependant application admin skills

Intermediate DBA

1) Intermediate DBA skills – Solid basic skills & solid knowledge of an advanced SQL Server feature such High Availability ,Business Intelligence,Datawarehouse or other SQL Server – DBA Skills Growth Areas

2) Intermediate Dependant application admin skills

3) Deploy other middleware software – and interact with development teams on coding patterns, XML,.Net,single sign on

Advanced DBA

1) Advanced DBA skills – Intermediate DBA skills & solid knowledge of Enterprise management software. Experience and skills to operate in a complex database server environment

2) Advanced Dependant application admin skills such as Websphere, Business Objects,Sharepoint.

3) Deploy other middleware software – and interact with development teams on coding, XML,.Net,single sign on, connectivity, distributed transactions

4) Knowledge and experience of managing full Enterprise infrastructure in one of : BackUp \Recovery\Disaster Recovery, Security Management, Performance , Diagnostics

5) Knowledge of other database server systems such as DB2.

Let me know  your thoughts and experiences . It is difficult to obtain experience and knowledge to progress. Hopefully this post offered some ideas

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