Starting a new year is a good time to assess what skills you need to acquire, and begin planning to accomplish those tasks. For those persons working as a DBA, the options are really cool.
Sharepoint continues to be a tool many businesses use. However, because it stores lots of BLOB data, it takes a different kind of management to keep it running efficiently. This can be an environment where performance, backups, restoration, and failover can be a bit of a challenge.
SSIS, (SQL Server Integration Service) is another tool many DBAs have not had an opportunity to work with. There is a huge amount of power in SSIS for the cleaning an movement of data. This can be combined with Data Management Service to provide even more power.
Data Warehousing is another different kind of data storage, with different goals, performance, disaster recover, etc.
Hybrid systems, combining cloud services with On Site services is another skill that is growing in demand. Include with that, the hosting of services completely in the cloud, and you have another new set of things to learn.
Speaking of hybrid, there are many opportunities to use NoSQL data storage engines where they make sense. Often, these systems benefit from management much as your familiar SQL engines.
Always on is another skill that is very important to have in your arsenal if you are responsible for keeping things on line.
Why not share what you find valuable for the developing DBA, regardless of the job description. Get into the conversation with your comment online.
Cheers,
Bem