A Day In The Life Of A DBA Manager

Mahesh VallampatiTypically report to the VP/Director of IT OperationsConsidered the Back Office of IT OperationsConsidered Important only when things are brokenNo c rer diti fof r r doini gn a g ood joj bTypically has a contentious relationship with Development OrganizationVery little clout in the organizationHas very limited say in code movement into productionOwns Performance Issues whether or not issues are related to the DB or tied to code qualitySoftware InstallationData SecurityDevelopment SupportApplication and Database AvailabilityAvA ov io di ini g g D ata at a L oso sOwns Database and by deduction Application Performance IssuesUnderstaffedOverworkedUnder-AppreciatedLimited Career AdvancementCono sidi ere er de O ut-S- oS uo rcr ec -e a- ba lelSkill Distribution is SkewedGood DBA’s are a prized commodityIOUG 2001 DBA SurveyIOUG 2001 DBA SurveyOvernight Jobs have failedReports are still runningDatabases for Application Development have not been clonedBusiness Process Owner has escalated to IT managementITI T D evev lopmem ntn M aM na an ga er c oc mpm laia nin ngn t o a na yn by ody ywho will listenHave to get that status report outOperational Users calling in reporting that screens are hangingStar DBA was paged overnight to address a backup that failedWake him up!!!Re-started Overnight JobsReports are using in-efficient execution plansRun Statspack reportsGot Lucky and found the root cause to be a statistics issueFixed the statisticsSend an update to the Business Process Owner and IT management explp al ini in ni gn an n ini tn rt ir ci atet sts at tst s isi ss us eu s s (non bo ob do yd y carer s)sDevelopers requesting code changes to productionData Fixes being developed by Business Process OwnersCIO wants to know why the DBA team is “reactive” and not “proactive”Where is that contractor who was supposed to be bought on board?Send out Outage NotificationsSend out Post-Mortem Reports on the Backup FailureUsers of the System and Developers Take early lunch as the DBA team is working on issuesSummoned to the Director/VP of IT Operations to explal ini n w hw yh theh rer a rer sos mam nyn i si ss us eu sStill no answer of the back filling of the departure of the other star Oracle DBAThe UNIX System Administrator is sulking that he was woken up last night by the DBA to address the backup issue and makes a snide remarkWhere is my SAN Disk request?Get Junk food from kitchen (No Soup for you!!!)Systems StabilizingCloning of Development Databases completeRun Data Fix ScriptsMeeting with SOX AuditorsStar DBA comes over to complain that he will sts artr l ol okini gn fof r r a nen w w j oj bDBA needs a vacation and comes in with a vacation requestNext Weekend Release Planning MeetingSQL Server License Compliance Meeting with Microsoft PrepHR Calling into request an audit of HR Database Access