DBA Rules of Thumb - Part 9 (Call on Others for Help When Needed)

Use All of the Resources at Your Disposal

Remember that you do not have to do everything yourself. Use the resources at your disposal. We have talked about some of those resources, such as articles and books, Web sites and scripts, user groups and conferences. But there are others.

Do not continue to struggle with problems when you are completely stumped. Some DBAs harbor the notion that they have to resolve every issue themselves in order to be successful. Sometimes you just need to know where to go to get help to solve the problem. Use the DBMS vendor’s technical support, as well as the technical support line of your DBA tool vendors. Consult internal resources for areas where you have limited experience, such as network specialists for network and connectivity problems, system administrators for operating system and system software problems, and security administrators for authorization and protection issues.

As a DBA you are sometimes thought of as "knowing everything" (or worse a know-it-all), but it is far more important to know where to go to get help to solve problems than it is to try to know everything there is to know. Let's face it... it is just not possible to know everything about database systems and making them work with all types of applications and users these days.

When you go to user groups, build a network of DBA colleagues whom you can contact for assistance. Many times others have already encountered and solved the problem that vexes you. A network of DBAs to call on can be an invaluable resource (and no one at your company even needs to know that you called for outside help).

Finally, be sure to understand the resources available from your DBMS vendors. DBMS vendors offer their customers access to a tremendous amount of useful information. All of the DBMS vendors offer software support on their Web sites. Many of them provide a database that users can search to find answers to database problems. IBM customers can use IBMLink,^[1] and both Oracle and Microsoft offer a searchable database in the support section of their Web sites. Some DBAs claim to be able to solve 95 percent or more of their problems by researching online databases. These resources can shrink the amount of time required to fix problems, especially if your DBMS vendor has a reputation of “taking forever” to respond to issues.

Of course, every DBA should also be equipped with the DBMS vendor’s technical support phone number for those tough-to-solve problems. Some support is offered on a pay-per-call basis, whereas other times there is a prepaid support contract. Be sure you know how your company pays for support before calling the DBMS vendor. Failure to know this can result in your incurring significant support charges.

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[1]. IBMLink is a proprietary network that IBM opens up only to its customers.

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DBA Rules of Thumb - Part 8 (Being Business Savvy)

Understand the Business, Not Just the Technology

Remember that being technologically adept is just a part of being a good DBA. Although technology is important, understanding your business needs is more important. If you do not understand the impact on the business of the databases you manage, you will simply be throwing technology around with no clear purpose.

Business needs must dictate what technology is applied to what database—and to which applications. Using the latest and greatest (and most expensive) technology and software might be fun and technologically challenging, but it most likely will not be required for every database you implement. The DBA’s tools and utilities need to be tied to business strategies and initiatives. In this way, the DBA’s work becomes integrated with the goals and operations of the organization.

The first step in achieving this needed synergy is the integration of DBA services with the other core components of the IT infrastructure. Of course, DBAs should be able to monitor and control the databases under their purview, but they should also be able to monitor them within the context of the broader spectrum of the IT infrastructure—including systems, applications, storage, and networks. Only then can companies begin to tie service-level agreements to business needs, rather than technology metrics.

DBAs should be able to gain insight into the natural cycles of the business just by performing their job. Developers and administrators of other parts of the IT infrastructure will not have the vision into the busiest times of the day, week, quarter, or year because they are not privy to the actual flow of data from corporate business functions. But the DBA has access to that information as a component of performing the job. It is empowering to be able to understand business cycle information and apply it on the job.

DBAs need to expand further to take advantage of their special position in the infrastructure. Talk to the end users — not just the application developers. Get a sound understanding of how the databases will be used before implementing any database design. Gain an understanding of the database’s impact on the company’s bottom line, so that when the inevitable problems occur in production you will remember the actual business impact of not having that data available. This also allows you to create procedures that minimize the potential for such problems.

To fulfill the promise of business/IT integration, it will be necessary to link business services to the underlying technology. For example, a technician should be able to immediately comprehend that a service outage to transaction X7R2 in the PRD2 environment means that regional demand deposit customers cannot access their accounts. See the difference?

Focusing on transactions, TP monitors, and databases is the core of the DBA’s job. But servicing customers is the reason the DBA builds those databases and manages those transactions. Technicians with an understanding of the business impact of technology decisions will do a better job of servicing the business strategy. This is doubly true for the DBA’s manager. Technology managers who speak in business terms are more valuable to their company.

Of course, the devil is in the details. A key component of realizing effective business/IT integration for DBAs is the ability to link specific pieces of technology to specific business services. This requires a service impact management capability—that is, analyzing the technology required to power each critical business service and documenting the link. Technologies exist to automate some of this through event automation and service modeling. Such capabilities help to transform availability and performance data into detailed knowledge about the status of business services and service-level agreements.

Today’s modern corporations need technicians who are cognizant of the business impact of their management decisions. As such, DBAs need to get busy transforming themselves to become more business savvy — that is, to keep an eye on the business impact of the technology under their span of control. 

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Happy New Year

Here we are at the end of another year and on the brink of a shiny New Year. Let's take this time to look back on the successes of 2013... and to examine our failures with an eye toward avoiding them in 2014.

Celebrate safely tonight... and let's all meet back here later this week to continue our series on DBA Rules of Thumb!

Happy New Year everybody!

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Seasons Greetings

Just a short post today to wish all of my readers a very happy holiday season and to let you know that I will not be posting anything new between now and the end of the year...

But be sure to check back again in 2014 as I continue to write about DB2 and database issues that impact all of us!

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DBA Rules of Thumb - Part 7 (Don't Become a Hermit!)

Part 7 of our ongoing series on DBA Rules of Thumb is a short one on being accessible and approachable... in other words, Don't Be a Hermit!

Sometimes DBAs are viewed as the "curmudgeon in the corner" -- you know the  type, don't bother "Neil," he'll just yell at you and call you stupid. Don't be like Neil!

Instead, develop a good working relationship with the application developers. Don’t isolate yourself in your own little DBA corner of the world. The more you learn about what the applications do and the application requirements, the better you can adjust and tune the databases to support those applications.

A DBA should be accessible. Don’t be one of those DBAs whom everyone is afraid to approach. The more you are valued for your expertise and availability, the more valuable you are to your company.

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DBA Rules of Thumb - Part 6 (Preparation)

Measure Twice, Cut Once

Being prepared means analyzing, documenting, and testing your DBA policies and procedures. Creating procedures in a vacuum without testing will do little to help you run an efficient database environment. Moreover, it will not prepare you to react rapidly and effectively to problem situations.

The old maxim applies: Measure twice, cut once. In the case of DBA procedures, this means analyze, test, and then apply. Analyze your environment and the business needs of the databases to create procedures and policies that match those needs. Test those procedures. Finally, apply them to the production databases.

DBAs must be calm amid stress. DBAs must prepare for every situation that can be reasonably thought to have the potential to occur... ...and when the unthinkable occurs, the DBA remains logical and thorough in collecting details, ferreting out the root cause of the problem, and taking only the necessary actions to remediate the problem. This Rule of Thumb ties in nicely with the last one (Don't Panic!)... Every action you take should be planned and implemented with a calm disposition. Analysis and preparation are the friend of the DBA. The last thing you want to do is rage into a problem scenario making changes like gunslinger who acts first and worries about the consequences later.

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DBA Rules of Thumb - Part 5 (Don’t Panic!)

Way back in the early 1990s when I was working as a DBA I had a button pinned up in my cubicle that read in large letters “DON’T PANIC!” If I recall correctly, I got it for free inside a game from back in those days based on “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” When I left my job as a DBA to go to work for a software company I bequeathed that button to a friend of mine (Hello, Chris!) who was taking over my duties… for all I know, he still has that button pinned up in his office.

But the ability to forgo panicking is a very important quality in a DBA.

A calm disposition and the ability to remain cool under strenuous conditions are essential to the makeup of a good DBA. Problems will occur—nothing you can do can eliminate every possible problem or error. Part of your job as a DBA is to be able to react to problems with a calm demeanor and analytical disposition.

When a database is down and applications are unavailable, your environment will become hectic and frazzled. The best things you can do when problems occur are to remain calm and draw on your extensive knowledge and training. As the DBA, you will be the focus of the company (or at least the business units affected) until the database and applications are brought back online. It can be a harrowing experience to recover a database with your boss and your users hovering behind your computer terminal and looking over your shoulder. Be prepared for such events, because eventually they will happen. Panic can cause manual errors—the last thing you want to happen when you are trying to recover from an error.

The more comprehensive your planning and the better your procedures, the faster you will be able to resolve problems. Furthermore, if you are sure of your procedures, you will remain much calmer.

So Don’t Panic!

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