Will the Cloud Change DBAs?

The cloud changes how you approach your systems, there’s no doubt. For the near-term, and possibly medium term, we’ll have predominantly hybrid solutions running. This means that you’ll still be managing those systems you have in-house PLUS the systems in the cloud. No problem. Some changes, but in many cases adding to, not reducing responsibilities.

I continue to hear though that people (consultants, system admin DBAs) are worried for their positions as the cloud matures. Tools are much more point and shoot (have you seen Azure’s control panel approach?) and as these upcoming updates roll out, those point and shoot interfaces will be pointing and shooting at local systems as well. Many of the things required today to keep track of your systems will just work. This "just work" thing is what concerns many people.

I think our positions will split a bit – split into admin roles with far greater responsibilities and far fewer resources to manage them. In other words, fewer people working with more servers and resources. You still have to work through how things are architected, how do you recover, how do you protect, performance and so many other core things that don’t just happen in many cases. You have to make sure it serves your purposes for your systems and users.

The other side of things will (I think) be centered around information technologies. Call it BI, call it data analyst work, whatever. Those that know how to munge information, pull information out… those types of things. There’s architecture here, but more in terms of table design and dependencies.

I think we end up with the two general areas (there are many different disciplines within them), and the driving force behind the changes is the cloud and moving the cloud-based services and tools.

How will this impact your position?