Life of a Lead DBA How to explain to your boss 'what you do' Chris Anderson Database Architect, CA Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation @realworldis When you are a lead Database Administrator, you can almost be guaranteed that your boss will not know more about Databases then you do.   It will be your job to explain to your boss (customers, clients, etc.) what it takes to operate and maintain a well-running database environment. You have to justify why there is work and spending necessary for *reactive* support and maintenance. No organization can stand still, so you will also need to demonstrate the need for *proactive* work: research, training and planning for new architecture. By doing so, you can demonstrate the value you are adding as a Lead DBA. In this session, you will see some frameworks and templates for explaining your responsibilities to your boss. Get some ideas reporting your workload in business terms, and presenting your database environment and concepts to non-technical audiences.

Who am I Chris Anderson IT for ~16 years – Application development, project management, business intelligence Past 3 years: Database Architect, CA Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation @realworldis Blog.realworldis.com Worked in database development and support for ~16 years – could review every schema, line of code, etc. (1 database instance at a time) Infrastructure Services (>130 database instances) Could no longer personally ‘know’ each database

Agenda DBAs should go to MARS What does the boss need to know? Getting that promotion Tips and tools Take aways Interactive; Discuss, questions

DBAs go to MARS Maintenance, Architecture, Research, and Support Credit: Stuart Ainsworth @CodeGumbo Johari window: Axes (my own spin) Alternative categories: consulting, infrastructure

DBAs go to MARS Who is initiating/driving the work – the DBA or other internal teams; Is is the customer requesting something that starts it? Is it maintaining your current state or working on a future state? First priority – keep your existing system running and stable; A good portion of your time should be spent on vNext Other options: proactive vs. reactive; delayed benefits vs. immediate

DBAs go to MARS Tie a goal to each of these; what value proposition is achieved by engaging in any of the activities? Automatic justification

DBAs go to MARS Finally fill in the services and tasks that you perform As a lead, on the current state, your job is to guide and mentor staff For the future state, you are the salesperson, attempting to get time and or money for the vNext Current state: Avoid, automate, and delegate As a lead, shift your time to the future state, make your team able to support the current state better/faster

DBAs go to MARS Be cognizant of the flow between task; What work is generated by completion of an activity? What need is driven?

What does the boss need to know? Where is time being spent? What are the hot issues? DBA Workload DBA Functions How many servers do we have? Are we running a supported patch level? Do we have enough capacity? Database Inventory and Health Jobs - Difference at the VP level - excuses don't matter; Within the scope of your database environment, that’s at the lead level. Story: “we don’t support those databases, or ‘they’ won’t let us access those databases”   Junior- work up to the point of a barrier; Journey - break through those barriers, Senior - remove those barriers for others Story: ‘confidential database’ Story: ‘scripts, SOPs’ – make them barrier free

Getting that Promotion! Start doing the job you want! How to have the discussion with your boss? What kind of skills? Soft skills Start doing the job you want - behave at the level you want, zero time talking about being the next, and a lot of time doing the things that you would do in the position   How to have that discussion with your boss? What kind of skills? Presentations Writing – publish often, celebrate people building upon your writing (SOP manual at FMT) Audience - how to communicate to different audiences Soft skills Credibility, trust ~= expert Professional presence - interact with management, peers, junior staff (the intern) Story: Tweet about replication tables to #sqlhelp

Tips and Tools Inventory and Health Discovery Team organization Central Management Server (CMS) Policy Based Management (PBM) Enterprise Policy Management (EPM) Discovery Idera InstanceCheck Microsoft Assessment Planning Toolkit Team organization OneNote Scripts folder Inventory and Health See @SacSQLDude talk on ‘Own your Servers with CMS’ (https://www.mssqltips.com/sql-server-video/98/easily-manage-your-sql-servers-with-cms-and-pbm/) Explore EPM for health check (@SQLChicken) (http://epmframework.codeplex.com/) or invest in 3rd party tools like Idera Inventory Manager Discovery: Variety of free tools to scan your network for SQL Servers – bring them into your control as ‘managed’ servers; otherwise document them as ‘unmanaged’ servers; What does that mean for support? App owners will want to be in the ‘happy’ place Team organization: Get the team shared workplaces right out the gate: Use OneNote, setup a folder for SQL Scripts, be very liberal about who edits and how to empower the team (use version control like SVN if you need traceability)

Take Aways Challenge Draft your own one pager showing your Database environment Plug your tasks into the MARS grid. Where are you spending your time? Tip: Present the whole answer; let the boss can ask for more detail if needed As technologist, we can focus on edge cases, execs often tend to focus on the big picture caseschris.

Thank You @SacSQLUG! Questions? Chris Anderson Database Architect, CA Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation @realworldis