Were you ever sitting in a salary review when you suddenly discovered that you and your boss had different ideas about your most important responsibilities?

Not every DBA has a position-specific job description, and even those who do may not have duties prioritized in writing. When those duties and priorities are subject to change as they are in a data center, there’s even more likelihood that you and your boss may have different ideas about what “important” means.

In a survey of 300 DBAs, managers and developers called The Real World of the Database Administrator, Unisphere Research found that DBAs consider it their primary charter to keep databases up and running and performing well. Beyond that, they also keep an eye on everything from capacity planning to security. As shown in the graphic above, those are the most important standards to which they hold themselves.

But if you look at how DBAs believe their managers evaluate them, the measuring stick is different. The graphic below shows that their managers consider speed of issue resolution paramount, with performance and uptime a close second and third, respectively.

Makes sense, doesn’t it? The further up the ladder you go, the less you hear “caching,” “latency” and “finely tuned SQL,” and the more you hear “Just fix it, and hurry.” Most DBAs know it’s a juggling act, and the smart ones hone their skills to keep all the balls in the air without falling.

We’ve made the Unisphere report, The Real World of the Database Administrator, available so you can see what else your fellow DBAs are working on and thinking. Download it now to see whether their real world aligns with yours.

 

Download the Report>>

 

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