How Do You Morph Your Career?

When we went through the different considerations on this, the analogy I used was that of a college metaphor. Basically, you have a major and a minor (or multiple minors). You pick the major, perhaps it’s administration in the traditional sense, and then you work to fill out your minor areas for emphasis. This means you can know areas well, but not necessarily to the point of absolute expertise. You know what to do, where to get help and how to apply the technologies in real life. You might not know every single little option available, but you’ll know how to apply things.

For example, the one way to start working through things now is a major in database administration and a minor in SharePoint database management. In this type of arrangement, you’d focus on learning the SharePoint pieces as they apply to the databases you’re running. This means you’re only really looking to learn the "deltas" – my favorite way of learning new things. Just learn the differences. You probably already have an excellent foot hold on the administration of SQL Server (assuming that’s your major) and you can apply that to SharePoint in the database sense. Learn what is unique to SharePoint – what types of database configurations are best, when do things need attention, what’s different, what types of things aren’t covered out of the box, etc. There is a lot there, but it’s a lot less daunting to learn those differences. The other huge benefit in this specific type of situation is that you get to apply what you already know. Even if the minor you’re going after is only a 25% overlap, that still means you’re 25% of the way there and can apply your existing knowledge in a huge, leveraged way.

Once you get a minor area up to speed and you’re happy with it, you can put that minor into "maintenance" mode and then move to a new minor to add to your experience and knowledge.

I don’t know if this helps, but for me, approaching it as a means of learning the new differences and paying attention to those differences, makes the huge learning curves so much more easy to swallow. There are all sorts of areas to get your minors in – and keep the area focused. If you can have many, many "degrees" over time, you’ll be more valuable to your employer or clients and you’ll be learning in chunks that make sense to your experiences.

How do you go about eating that elephant that is SQL Server and the entire information platform? What works for you? Drop me a note, let me know – email me here.

Webcast: Operational Excellence for DBAs, Part 1: Setup and Configuration
This session covers key setup and configuration questions faced when setting up a new SQL Server, from the bare metal configuration on up. *What difference does the CPU make? *How important is 32-bit versus 64-bit? *Should I virtualize? *What kind of disk subsystem do I need? *What edition of SQL Server is best for this application and how should it be licensed? *What’s a good starter configuration compared to a high-end configuration? *What difference do important SP_CONFIGURE settings make to system performance?