Scott Shaw has created a session on this very topic – check it out here.
Unless you’re in a very unique situation systems-wise, I think it’s very clear that the cloud and cloud-based services, will be changing how we manage systems. In some cases it will be hybrid clouds like what we’re seeing support for from Microsoft and others. In other cases it’ll be a full-on move to the cloud. These don’t eliminate the need for a DBA, and they don’t really lessen the load either, I don’t think. It changes the requirements for the position though.
People seem to think that you’ll not need system admins, DBAs, etc. as you work in the cloud. It’s just not true. You still MUST have things set up correctly, managed correctly and the solutions are largely ala carte’, so you need someone watching over the many component parts of your cloud solution. Sound familiar? It should. That’s also what you have to do with on-premise solutions today. Sure, the tools are getting much better to manage it all, and perhaps you won’t need as much assistance in the operational "getting tasks done" areas, but the architecture, the planning, the management of the systems and then working through the right way to do things – all of these are just as important. In fact, I’d say the benefits these bring when done correctly are even more pronounced in the cloud.
If you have systems working optimally, you can save significant dollars when it comes to the expenses of running in the cloud. It’s quite possible that with your on-premises solutions, you didn’t have the visibility into the direct costs of running your systems. Now, with the cloud being a largely usage-based billing system, you can directly impact your costs by having efficient operations, optimized configurations and so-on.
Add to this that some of the promise of the cloud is disaster recovery and high availability, plus the fact that it needs to be setup and managed, and you quickly see that in many, many areas, it’s "more of the same."
You’ll have many of the same issues –
– monitoring
– performance – query performance, connectivity performance, disaster recovery performance
– best practices – security, encryption, data access, data use, accessibility from applications and tools
– architecture – systems configurations and data schema-level items
These are really significant items. These are areas that you’ll need to learn to apply your skillset across the board, without regard to where the solution(s) that you support live.
What are some of the NEW items that will surely fall under the watchful eye of the DBA and/or system admin?
Shoot me a note, let me know… (swynk@sswug.org)