So, OpenWorld is in the history books. Here are a few of my thoughts on the things DBAs learned:
1. There is no shame in simplifying your job. If you're the type who likes to write scripts at 3AM, that's fine; if you'd rather spend your administration and development time more productively, there are tools available -- whether OEM 10g Grid Control or HTML DB -- to help you do that. It's not a question of being "replaced" by automation; rather, the question is how you'd prefer to spend what little time you have.
For example, would you prefer to spend days or even weeks diagnosing bottlenecks by wading through stats and correlating them with load patterns, or would you rather have the database do that for you so that you can spend your time preventing such problems from occurring at all? Especially if you're managing several, dozens, or even scores of databases?
2. Chances are good that your CIO has Grid Computing in his or her future plans. So, it's time to start figuring out how to make it happen in your shop from a rubber-meets-the-road standpoint.
3. Security, once an also-ran in the list of DBA priorities, is becoming increasingly important. Evaluating your security priorities across the IT stack (not just in the database) is a good start.
4. Speaking of the IT stack, it's not enough to know your databases inside and out anymore. You also have to understand issues such as java-to-database object persistence, the impact of loosely-coupled applications (Web services) on database performance as well as on security, the impact of storing XML and unstructured content, and so on. Plus, it wouldn't hurt to know how to craft a simple, data-driven departmental application in a few days or weeks if you have to (hello, PHP and HTML DB...)
5. With the new layers of abstraction (dashboards) being draped across the IT stack (enterprise performance management, the analysts call it), your managers will have an increasingly good view into IT operations. If your data center is performing at 5% utilization, for example, they'll know it -- and want to know why.
We enjoyed bringing you this blog! Happy trails...
