What It Means To Be A Production DBA

<div><p><img align="right" alt="The Bobs" border="0" height="134" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTG8N71hhZp2Dghuar73Ha6AIdFpAplABiA1dcMHu45u721tysSRuOKfhVHLGZPhnAFPP_qIO6qQYNhvk4SnDeqFuLBCjT5ueJiRpXalDt1ucMi5DnE3MIOSpOWTz0LcozOSyoKHubGDaU/?imgmax=800" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="The Bobs" width="244" /> Remember <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKa68kWkP48" target="_blank">that scene from Office Space</a> where the Bobs ask, "What would you say you do here?" I've been a production DBA for most of my 10+ year career and I've boiled down the non-technical answer to "I keep the lights on and the wheels turning". While it may be an adequate answer for a casual conversation, it's far from a fair description of what I do on a daily basis. </p> <p>Recently I came across a blog post by Tim & Lori Edwards (Twitter: <a href="mailto:T@timbo_b_edwards" target="_blank">@timbo_b_edwards</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/loriedwards" target="_blank">@loriedwards</a>) that I thought does a great job of answering that question and is worth sharing: <a href="http://sqlservertimes2.com/?p=97" target="_blank">What Is A Production DBA, Anyway?</a></p> <p>Tim & Lori's blog – <a href="http://sqlservertimes2.com/" target="_blank">SQLServerTimes2</a> – is relatively new but they've got some good posts up so far. Go check out their post on being a production DBA, and while you're there take a minute to read their other posts and consider adding them to your RSS feeds.</p> </div>

Remember that scene from Office Space where the Bobs ask, "What would you say you do here?" I've been a production DBA for most of my 10+ year career and I've boiled down the non-technical answer to "I keep the lights on and the wheels turning". While it may be an adequate answer for a casual conversation, it's far from a fair description of what I do on a daily basis.

Recently I came across a blog post by Tim & Lori Edwards (Twitter: @timbo_b_edwards and @loriedwards) that I thought does a great job of answering that question and is worth sharing: What Is A Production DBA, Anyway?

Tim & Lori's blog – SQLServerTimes2 – is relatively new but they've got some good posts up so far. Go check out their post on being a production DBA, and while you're there take a minute to read their other posts and consider adding them to your RSS feeds.

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About Kendal

Kendal is a database strategist, community advocate, public speaker, and blogger. A practiced IT professional with over 15 years of SQL Server experience, Kendal excels at disaster recovery, high availability planning/implementation, & debugging/troubleshooting mission critical SQL Server environments. Kendal is a Senior Consultant on the Microsoft Premier Developer Support team and President of MagicPASS, the Orlando, FL based chapter of PASS. Before joining Microsoft, Kendal was a SQL Server/Data Platform MVP from 2011-2016.

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