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The Ironic DBA—My First Year as a DBA [Part 3]

July 14, 2020 by SQLandMTB Leave a Comment

T-SQL Tuesday is a monthly blog party for the SQL Server community. It is the brainchild of Adam Machanic (b|t) and this month’s edition is hosted by Kerry Tyler (b|t), who  has asked us to write about “Learning From Others“.

I thought I’d join the party this month and throw my latest post into the mix since my entire journey over the last year has been learning from others in the SQL community.

Junior DBA

On September 17, 2019, I was given a promotion from Apprentice to Junior DBA. By this point, I had three daily check clients and one weekly check client in my portfolio. Despite the promotion, I was (and remain to this day) very much in training mode. The primary reason for the change in status was the fact that I was starting to interact directly with some of my clients.

Until this point I had been performing my daily server checks and sending my reports to Kevin. From there, Kevin would let the clients know of problems critical enough to warrant their attention. Once I became a Junior, I began to send my own reports to one client and interject in emails to others.

Honestly, this was a bit nerve-wracking at first. While I’m no stranger to emailing clients for work or business, sending emails of a highly-technical nature—especially within a field where I am still quite green—was completely outside my wheelhouse. Kevin has corrected me privately or clarified terms for clients when something I’ve written isn’t completely accurate. I’m okay with this because it not only aids our clients in getting the most accurate information, but it also helps solidify terms and concepts in my mind.

Since promotion day, I’ve added three more daily clients to my routine. Each new client brings another level of complexity and new experiences—including one client using replication, and another using Availability Groups.

Impostor Syndrome

Being so new and inexperienced in a job is something I haven’t had to deal with for a long time. To be honest, it’s a very strange feeling to be a middle-aged man about a year into a third career.

I was just getting settled into feeling comfortable calling myself a graphic designer after about five years of experience. When our design clients started drying up and I began learning about photography in the hopes of starting a photography business, I ventured onto shaky ground again. Thankfully, I discovered I was a natural at photography and became rather good at it in a short period of time. Despite all that, the business never got of the ground because I underestimated just how saturated the local market was, so it was a non-starter as a business (and why I don’t count it as yet another career).

Now that I’m a little over a year into the SQL Server world, I’m starting to find balance again. For a long while, whenever I met someone who asked me what I do for a living, I had felt like an impostor saying, “I’m a DBA.” I would sort of waffle and respond with something like, “Well, I used to be…and then I…but now I’m learning to be a DBA.” It’s only recently that I’ve felt confident enough to just flat out declare, “I’m a DBA.”

Comparison is a losing game, especially when you’re comparing yourself to those who’ve been in the game for 20+ years. In my months of dedicated training, I’ve spent a lot of virtual time around DBAs who have been in the business for a long time. It’s easy to fall into the trap of comparing myself to them, but I constantly remind myself that I’m still new and haven’t discovered my area of specialization yet. The people I’m learning from typically have both experience and specialization in their toolbox.

Certification?

The biggest challenge over the last few months has been preparing for the 70-764 Administering a SQL Database Infrastructure exam. About the time Kevin laid this challenge out for me, we discovered that Microsoft was retiring most of the role-based certifications in favor of a new framework.

To be fair, Kevin never required me to take the certification exam. He only wanted me to study and learn the material as the next step in my DBA training. Knowing myself, however, I asked him to set me a goal for taking the exam, which helps me keep my focus and move forward toward a specific goal. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft has decided to keep the pre-existing certifications and exams through January of 2021. Our goal is for me to take the 70-764 exam by the end of September 2020.

I’ve been studying long enough now that I’m starting to find and take some free online practice tests for the exam. I have access to the official practice exam which I’ll probably attempt in August 2020 to find my weak areas before scheduling the official exam. I’ve also found several flash card decks on the Quizlet website that were created by previous exam-takers. I’m spending some time each day reviewing and quizzing myself using these decks.

I fully expect to not pass the exam, and I’m okay with that fact—I’ll still give it my best effort. Again, Kevin’s goal has been for me to learn and grow as a DBA through both study and experience, not collect certifications. As I work through the practice tests I’ve found so far, my biggest takeaway is that there’s no replacement for experience. Several times I’ve been completely stumped by an exam question that would likely not cause a problem for a DBA with several more years of experience. But each time I’m stumped by a question, I go research it and learn the answer, thereby increasing my own knowledge.

Maybe, just maybe, I’ll have enough knowledge internalized by exam time to pass, but I’m not going to be terribly disappointed if I don’t. This is just another step on the journey to becoming a better DBA.

Follow me on Twitter at @SQLandMTB, and if you’re into mountain bikes come over and check out my site NTX Trails.

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Filed Under: Career, EntryLevel Tagged With: career, syndicated

Dear Junior DBA…

September 2, 2016 by Kevin3NF 2 Comments

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

Congratulations on getting your first SQL Server DBA job!

Presumably you have a tech background or education, and have been through some basic training in SQL Server administration.  I also assume you intended to be a DBA and want to be really good at it so you can advance your career and get mad raises/bonuses.

With any luck at all, you are in an environment where there is at least one other DBA there that knows more than you do.  Ideally a Senior that is really into mentoring that can guide your path.

If not, here are some of the basic things that you may already know how to do in SQL Server Management Studio, but don’t really know the inner workings or the T-SQL to make them happen.

Also, almost everything you can do in current SSMS versions can be scripted.  Look for the script button and click it after you make all of your selections so you can start learning the code behind the GUI.  In time you’ll prefer going straight to the Query Window for some functions of your job.

The list I want my juniors to get intimately familiar with:

  • Backup and Restore…beyond the Maintenance Plans
  • Creating/Deleting databases
  • Creating Logins and Users (and knowing the difference)
  • Creating and maintaining indexes
  • Other database maintenance items
  • Basics of whatever HA/DR may be in place (Clustering, Log Shipping, Availability Groups)
  • Basic performance monitoring via SQL Trace or Extended Events in modern SQL versions

All of these can be setup/monitored in the GUI…so make sure you know all of the options there, and then start working on knowing them deeper. Start with Books Online/MSDN and go from there.

More on each list item:

Backup and Restore – I want you to be able to regurgitate exactly what the difference is between Full, Differential and Transaction Log backups.  I want you to know when you would use each.  You need to know how to restore to a point in time, to another server or as a new database name. Backwards and forwards…this is DBA 101 and the first question I ask if I interview you.  You need to be able to throw down the basic Backup Database syntax on the fly.  Also, recovery models…memorize and understand them (including Bulk-Logged)

 

Creating/Deleting databases – There are many ways to create a database…SSMS, T-SQL, Restore from a backup, deploy from a .dacpac/.bacpac, etc.  Know how to do each, when you would use each, what options are available and how they affect behavior.  Know about filegroups and best practices for laying out your .mdf, .ldf and .ndf files…for your environment.   Know what to do before you delete a database.  Does the requester mean Delete, Detach or just take offline?  What’s the difference?  Know your RPO and RTO by heart.

 

Creating Logins and Users (and knowing the difference) – I’m amazed at the number of experienced people and non-sql people that use the terms interchangeably.  Know the difference. Also learn what server and database roles are. These days, the more you know about the various pieces of the security model in SQL Server the stronger a DBA you are.

 

Creating and maintaining indexes – If your databases are only a few GB, you can almost ignore indexes…but don’t.  Know and be able to explain the difference between clustered and non-clustered indexes.  Understand how to determine what indexes are needed and which existing ones are not. What is an included column?  What is a covering index?  Memorize the ins and outs of Reorganize vs Rebuild and Online vs. Offline maintenance…this matters.  A surprising number of application developers will rely heavily on you for help in this area.

 

Other database maintenance items – DBCC CheckDB and its impact on tempdb.  How to respond to CheckDB errors. Statistics…what are they, do they matter and how do you handle them?  When?

Basics of whatever HA/DR may be in place (Clustering, Log Shipping, Availability Groups)
Know the difference between the various options available and what they are intended to do.  High Availability, Disaster Recovery and Distributed Computing are NOT the same things.  Understand that managers use Replication and Log Shipping interchangeably. Teach them gently.  Your environment may or may not being doing any of this.   Know your RPO and RTO by heart.
Basic performance monitoring via SQL Trace or Extended Events in modern SQL versions – any time you have a chance to get into a performance tuning issue jump on it.  Don’t assume the issue is with SQL server just because someone said so.  Prove it is or isn’t.  Don’t automatically blame the storage or network teams unless you are never going to need them again (you will need them again…).  Start at the server level, then drill down into the DB, then queries…jumping straight to queries may just be a waste of time if a rogue application is stealing all the CPU or leaking memory.
Yes, this is a lot of stuff.  No, you won’t learn all of this today or next week.  If you went from GUI to familiarity with all of this in 6 months I’d be impressed.  Ask your mentors and teammates for help and guidance AFTER you do your research.

 

Also, there is a ton more you will pick up along the way.  Ask questions.  Go to SQL events if possible.  Read blogs from Paul Randal, Brent Ozar and Grant Fritchey (and a bunch of others)

You can make a long career out of just database administration.   But don’t deprive yourself of opportunities to learn about storage, virtualization, cloud computing, development, business intelligence, etc.  The more you know, the more successful you can be.   One of these days, you will be the mentor, not the mentee.  Be kind to the new guy 😉

Kevin3NF

Filed Under: Beginner, Career, EntryLevel Tagged With: career, syndicated

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