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Building Simple Reports with Reporting Services (Part 1 of 5)
We’re going to show how to create both simple reports and reports with variables. We will discuss how to manage those reports once you’ve created them including how to secure your reports. And finally we will discuss how to allow your users to access those reports. Throughout the session we will be doing demos of nearly every feature of Reporting Services.
How To Grow a DBA
Thank you for the large response to my editorial on How To Grow a DBA on 8/24. In it I shared then the story of a Business Analyst who wanted to become a DBA and was looking for insight how to make the transition.
My in box filled rapidly with responses, so don’t be hurt if your’s isn’t presented here.
One of the ways many of our readers were able to make the switch was by becoming deeply interested in projects requiring their current skills allowing them to work closely with the technical implementation.
Adam writes:
I was an MIS Analyst (build/run reports) with … and we needed a data mart. The report data was stored in Access, but that was falling apart so my manager decided to use SQL Server 2000. I had to figure out how to use SQL Server through trial and error (lots of errors). The company then built a large data warehouse and I was very involved with that. It started me down the road of being a DBD/DBA – mostly in SQL Server, but I’ve dabbled in MySQL, DB2, and Oracle. Today, 10 years later, I do DBD and DBA work for a large non-profit. I never meant to do this type of work, but I’m happy to be an accidental DBA.
Steve started by taking the point for implementing a new technology:
I became a DBA when my employer decided to use DB2 on MVS. This would have been in ’86 or ’87; DB2 version 1.2. I was asked if I wanted to work on the first application that would use DB2 or if I would be interested in administering DB2. That was an easy decision; I wanted to know it intimately rather than just use it.
You mention becoming an intern or a DBA assistant. No, since I was the ONLY one I had to learn on my own. Well, I did take a few classes. And the user groups were a big help when I could get to them. They were 100 miles South or 200 hundred miles North.
Since then I’ve worked with lots of RDBMSes on several different platforms, but my favorite is still Big DB2.
A DBA has to know so much – software install, tuning at the system level and the appl level, data design, application design, the utilities and knowing when they are needed, recovery, help EVERYBODY with EVERYTHING including JCL and COBOL and Assembler (because the program accesses DB2), DBA needs to know communications between boxes and OSes, gotta have a good logical programmer mind, the progamming staff will expect the DBA to know the programmer’s application better than the programmer does, and on and on and on. Did I even mention SQL? a DBA needs to know how to code SQL and do it well.
It can be rewarding, but it is a challenge. Someone should only pursue being a DBA if they love the challenge and are willing to WORK and not just "Google it."
I’ll share some more insights next week. In the mean time, if you have a topic you’d like to see addressed feel free to drop a note or comment to btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben
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dba3_NorthWind_0050_Materialized_View_Invoices_Article
View it now! – Part II: Banishing view timeouts by implementing user "materialized views"… (read more)