New Database Admin

Question

I just took a promotion at my company from a computer support technician to a server admin/db admin. I have been a computer support tech for roughly 10 years. I have some experience with databases from my database design class in college.I have also made some Php programs that have integrated with MySQL.

I would say right now my job is 10 percent database admin and 90 percent other server admin. The programmers in my company tend to do the most with the databases. We do not have any other database admins other than myself. My role right now is limited to mostly backing up, restoring databases, resolving major issues, and setting database permissions. I have only had a few issues that were not difficult to fix since I started. As I am in my role longer, more of my time will go toward database administration. My company uses Microsoft SQL Server for their databases. As a new db admin what would you suggest I learn and be proactive about? What resources do you recommend learning from? Any help is appreciated!

Answer 1

DBA's get called on to do many things but in my opinion the most important things in order are:

1. Backups
2. Security
3. Reliability
4. Performance

When things go horribly wrong all eyes will be on you. Your ability to restore a critical system quickly, quietly and calmly will be important. Practice. Test. Practice some more. Ensure your backup strategy meets business expectations. Learn about RPO & RTO.

When things arent going wrong the next most important thing is ensuring that only the people who should have access to your data do. IMO 1 & 2 above are critical. Failure to achieve these responsibilties will not be forgiven lightly.

For critical production systems stability is highly desireable. You want it to run smoothly without interruptions and downtime. Dont play around in prod during office hours any more than is necesary. Do your bulk jobs and maintenance during scheduled time slots. Stop others from doing stupid things. Lead by example. Eg don't develop on a prod server, and don't put prod dbs on a dev box.

If performance degrades people will start turning to you for help or answers. Learn about query tuning and the relationship with regular maintenance of indexes and statistics. There are some great free resources such as Brent Ozar's and Ola Hallengren's scripts that will give you a big headstart.

The more routine tasks you can automate the more time you will have to spend elsewhere.

If you do have spare time and want to learn more you can start by reading blogs and forums like DBA Stack Exchange and SQL Server Central, Paul White, Pinal Dave, Brent Ozar, Aaron Bertrand etc.