Are you an Accidental DBA?

Kevin Hill Kevin Hill

Kevin Hill

Over-caffeinated, Bike-riding Senior DBA #SQLServer #FractionalDBA

发布日期: 2016年6月9日
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Much has been written about the "Accidental DBA" over the last few years in the IT world. You may have seen it while skimming up and down your LinkedIn feed. You may even be one and not really know it. Worse...you are one and would rather not be!

An Accidental DBA is someone that finds himself doing database administration for any number of reasons:

  • Company can't or won't afford to hire a Full-Time DBA
  • FT DBA is on vacation, training or out sick
  • FT DBA quit before the replacement arrives
  • FT DBA is slammed with high priority work and you get to do the mundane tasks
  • Lots of other situations come to mind

Things typically asked of a non-DBA:

  •  Are we backing up?
  • Why is the server slow?
  • Install SQL Server (Or MySQL, or Oracle...)
  • "Fix the database server"
  • Create a quick report for the meeting

If you are tired of getting these requests or they are interfering with getting your normal duties completed, you should look into engaging a part-time DBA. There are many independent consultants out there that will happily work remotely on your servers, ensuring availability, installing new instances, etc. Prices vary, and check the experience level/resume, but this can be an incredibly cheap way to offload mundane tasks and ensure something important doesn't slip by.

Many independent consultants will enter in to a maintenance contract with you for a partial week (x hours at Y dollars) to perform regular requests and system maintenance. Others will jump in blind on a server down to get your company back on track. You pay for response time and skill level, but a few hours a week is far cheaper than paying a FTE salary plus benefits to have someone sitting there with nothing to do 30 hours a week.

I am one of those consultants of course, but SQL Server only. Feel free to message me for rates and availability. In the DFW area I will do some on-site at first if needed. I'll even help you find someone if I don't have the specific skillset that you need (SQL Server is a huge product with many different parts). Optionally, I can do some onsite 1-on-1/2 training for Non-SQL IT staff and managers. Hands on using my equipment or Azure VMs.

Kevin Hill

I have a bunch of blog posts aimed at Accidental DBAs here:

https://dallasdbas.com/category/sql/accidental-dba/

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