DBAs Fishing for an Elevated Role
Information Management Special Reports, July 2007
Anyone who has ever fished off an oceanside charter can tell you what a great and exhilarating experience it is. You're out on the open water on a gorgeous, sunny day, a gentle breeze in your hair and the warm sea spray in your face, while all your troubles sit packed up back on shore.
The best part about it? The ship's crew does all the tough, dirty, routine work - driving the boat out to the right spot, maintaining equipment, baiting hooks, running lines, untangling lines and handling the fish once it's caught. In the meantime, you get to do the fun stuff, which essentially amounts to getting the fish on the line, fighting it tooth and nail, reeling it in and then finally having your picture taken with it afterward when you get back to shore, with everyone looking at you like Captain Ahab having conquered the Great White. Ah, if only the whole world could be like that.
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Actually, it is getting there for database administrators (DBAs). Since organizations started storing all of their important data on computers, DBAs have been responsible not only for the quality, integrity and use of the data itself. They have also been charged with tasks such as loading and maintaining servers, performing backups, testing system integrity and managing the connectivity and usability of the entire OSI (or more accurately TCP/IP) stack. As a result, they spend precious little time fishing for great new insights on how data assets can grow the business because they've been too busy changing the reels.
A new model is beginning to emerge that is taking much of the drudgery out of the DBA position. This model - outsourcing the management of the data infrastructure - allows DBAs to spend far less time tackling tactical or maintenance-level data management tasks and more time determining how to use the actual data contained within the information stores for the strategic benefit of the organization. This sea change in thinking is helping DBAs around the country raise their profiles within their organizations and add value to their departments, as well as their careers.
No Longer a Strategic Advantage
In the early days of ubiquitous computing and up through the late 1990s, owning and operating a sophisticated database was a strategic advantage for an organization. It was much the same as having an automated, machine-driven factory rather than hundreds of individual workers at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Because of this, it was important to have some of the organization's best technologists overseeing the day-to-day operation of this important asset.
Today, though, nearly every competitor, large and small, possesses some sort of database containing information on customers, suppliers, partners and/or their internal data. The ability to store data in easily accessible repositories is no longer a strategic advantage in and of itself. Quite frankly, the management of the database infrastructure has become much more of a commodity at this point. As a result, the value is not in owning a database but in how you use it and what you get out of it.
Yet even with that, DBAs are still often mired in operational roles that take up the bulk of their time. Among the tasks they perform regularly are:
- Installing new DBMS versions and applying vendors' maintenance fixes;
- Setting and tuning system parameters;
- Turning the operating system, network, and transaction processors;
- Ensuring appropriate storage;
- Troubleshooting, monitoring and assuring availability/uptime;
- Managing security and authorization;
- Assuring data integrity and managing data formats;
- Overseeing data migrations; and
- Selecting and recommending tools.
While all of these are necessary and mission critical tasks, they are all fairly routine and tactical. So while DBAs are being increasingly called upon to think strategically, their work days are filled with the same old maintenance chores. It's not a very effective combination.
Increased Complexity
Another change in the landscape has been the increased complexity of the technology. Like everything else in the IT world, the engines behind databases have become more complex and specialized over the past few years. This fact has made it more difficult for internal IT personnel to keep up with the latest changes and best practices, particularly when managing what they already have is taking up so much of their time.
Even if they do manage to look into new technologies and methodologies, there are still two other hindrances to implementing them: the need for seamless operation on a day-to-day basis and the challenge of updating and training users.
With data being so critical to today's organizations, the minimum expectation for data availability is five nines - 99.999 percent. Anything below that causes an unacceptable interruption in the operation of the business. Yet rolling out a new technology, particularly if this is a task that's only performed every few years, can create huge risks for loss of service. It is difficult to be an expert in something you only do occasionally.
Once the new system is in place and running optimally, it can still be challenging to get users up to speed. Again, that is particularly true if the organization does not have a standing mechanism proven over years of use. This scenario will create a burden on both the DBAs and the help desk - neither of whom needs anything additional put on their plates.
Data Infrastructure Management is the Answer
Offloading management of the data infrastructure solves both concerns by removing the day-to-day burdens from the organization's internal IT staff. Third-party data infrastructure management organizations are able to focus on the operational side of database administration, rather than having to divide their attention between operations and how the data can (or should) be used. This allows them to manage the operations more closely, maintaining higher availability while reacting more quickly to a disruption in service levels.
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