Possible Transition from Systems Administrator to SQL Track

oxymoron5k

Hi all,
I am a IT Guy for a small chain and although I do like my job I am always looking for that next step. My current position involves a lot of hands on with SQL. Right now I use the tech support the majority of the time but I do have the opportunity to study up on SQL and make the switch to a more specialized career with SQL. I would gain the work experience by managing my SQL stuff myself after I learned it.

What are your thoughts on switching to like a DBA role? I would assume I would get paid more. I am getting paid 48K right now as a general IT guy. I live in CO.

Thanks!

anhtran35

My DBA friend is making well over 120k in the DC/VA area. He told me years ago that his college instructor said that DBA is a field that stays consistent. Oracle has pretty much a monopoly. I'm NOT a DBA guy so I don't know JACK. This link may help:

oxymoron5k

Where is the link?!

Nice! That is good to hear. I am a little confused on the difference between Oracle/SQL. I keep seeing Oracle pop up when I search around for SQL certs. Is a DBA the most common SQL job?

NotHackingYou

Oracle is a company that makes a DBMS (DataBase Management System) called Oracle. Microsoft also makes a DBMS called SQL Server. Some others are DB2, MySQL, or PostGre SQL. These are some of the major RDBMS (Relational Database Management Systems), which is what you are asking about. Don't worry about the other kinds of databases yet.

All of the DBMS listed above use their own interpretation of the language SQL, as defined by ANSI.

Start here: https://www.amazon.com/Exam-98-364-Database-Administration-Fundamentals/dp/0470889160

oxymoron5k

Oh I see. I may have to look at Oracle as well at some point. I am looking forward to diving into some SQL stuff. Is there anybody here that works in SQL? What does a typical day look like?

paul78

@OP - good luck to you as you start to explore db technologies. I wanted to just mention that not all databases are SQL-based. At the risk of complicating your path, I wanted to mention that there are many database technologies which are NoSQL-based. Many organizations are starting to deploy these solutions to solve scaling, performance, and availability challenges. And most of the major tech orgs will already have NoSQL solutions in production.

You may also want to take a look at these links to get an overview -

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/documentdb/documentdb-nosql-vs-sql
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/03/to-sql-or-nosql-thats-the-database-question/

NotHackingYou

I have had roles where database work was one of my primary duties. Lots of backups, restores, maintenance, etc are a typical thing for a DBA. You may also find yourself troubleshooting performance issues that may be intrinsic to the database (analyzing query plans mostly)or extrinsic (hardware, os, network, storage, etc).

You may find that you have scripting duties. Perhaps creating reports, creating stored procedures, functions, or jobs, moving data, changing data, creating indices, etc. At a bare minimum, expect to have to script your maintenance plans and other overhead. A DBA is not the same as a SQL Developer but an effective DBA most likely has a very good handle on SQL.