No more hiding in the server room

Full time SysAdmin or part time DBA too?

I read the interesting blog post by Database Administrator Brad McGehee yesterday where he asks (the other way round in his case as he is SQL focussed) are you a full time SysAdmin or are you also a part time DBA.

I personally thought the answer was dependent on size of organization - in a small shop one 'techie' person does (well, tries - as you know the roles are time consuming) both (and probably more), and as the organiztion grows the demands of both roles increase (as do resources to hire more people) and the roles are split. Or is it at this stage that you outsource?

It would be interesting to hear your thoughts and experiences - please post comments below.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Graycat on April 27, 2010 at 9:28pm

Personally I'm a full time sysadmin ....... trying to be a full time network admin, server admin, AV controller, web master and god knows what else! :o)

There does come a point though when you can not actually add any more benefit to the role by taking on more work. rather you actually spread yourself thinner and therefore worse in some areas to pick up the new skillset. At that point you need to either increase your team size to bring in skilled hands or outsource some of the responsibilities.

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Permalink Reply by Wesley "Nonapeptide" on April 27, 2010 at 9:46pm

I am a SysAdmin, Systems Engineer, DBA, Network Engineer, Phone Technician, Help Desk Operator, Web Site manager, IT Director, soon-to-be business owner, CEO, psychologist, and perpetual Pest Control Officer.

Beat that! *spikes football*

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Permalink Reply by Graycat on April 28, 2010 at 9:41am

Ok, I'll give it a shot .....

SysAdmin,
IT Manager / IT Tech Team Leader / IT Strategist,
Helpdesk Admin / co-ordinator / fixer,
Chief IT Trainer,
Supposedly Phone Guru (really don't want that job though!), VoIP admin (hate. this. role.),
Exchange Admin,
E-mail Signature Master (don't ask. have nightmares about this one),
Web Master,
Linux Poker / Admin,
Network Designer / Administrator / Geek
IT Project Manager and Herder
AD Legend, GPO Creator and Software Deployment God (Like this bit),
Anti-virus Minder and Molester,
Firewall designer / administrator / tester / breaker,
Chief Security Officer + pentester,
Printer Admin,
PC image creator,
VMware Administrator / Designer / Worrier
Nagios Controller / implementer
CEO + Consultant
Senior Manager Babysitter and Chief Hand Holder,

And generally and all round good egg and party animal!

Seriously though I've a full time team of three (inc me) that have two domain admins and one PC admin plus a "part time" team of local admins across all nine sites so we've got a lot of ground to cover. Fortunately as thing progress the team is growing so more people can be allocated to specialist roles.

One thing I am thankful for though is my boss who fights for what we are responsible for and then tells the rest of the company to go hug a landmine if they ask for anything else. :o) lol

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Permalink Reply by Kev Gallagher on April 28, 2010 at 8:27am

I am a Sys Admin in a team of seven who are classified as the Central Operations team. We allocated responsibilities to team members which covers AD, Mail, Hardware(server commissioning, SANs), Printing, Business Systems related applications(SQL), Account lifecycle. When I started out I too covered as much ground as possible but as the teams and responsiblities have grown so I now look after a smaller piece of the overall picture.

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Permalink Reply by Matt Simmons on May 5, 2010 at 12:04pm

I do some DB work. Basically, I keep the Oracle and Postgres servers happy, unless there's a REAL problem, then my boss (who acts as the DBA when he's not programming) fixes it. Unless he's on vacation, then I start making miracles.

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Angliss on May 5, 2010 at 3:30pm

We have a team of 3 people here, including a dedicated DBA. Before he arrived, we had somebody that claimed to be a DBA, but couldn't manage his way out of a paper bag (talked the talk, but couldn't walk the walk), so I was frequently doing a lot of what he should have been doing. After he was gone, there was a year break where I was managing all the usual stuff (ala Wesley/Graycat + plumbing and construction, and general handyman around the office). This was obviously not a good path. When we had issues I ended up being stretched in several directions all at once. So we brought on the new guy, he's been a gold mine for the company, improving performance, and making sure the SQL stuffs are running properly.

I still cover him when he's away/busy, but it's more of general stuff like basic queries, and quick job fix ups, but not nearly what one would count as a full time DBA. I still build the servers he runs his stuff on. I still make sure everything is alive. But he does all the hard work now.

That being said, he was off for 3 weeks due to family stuff, and what we do now is 10 times more than what we did when I ran as the DBA on top of everything else, it was a hectic few weeks. I'm happy we're looking for a second DBA.

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Permalink Reply by Christian Dinh on May 5, 2010 at 5:41pm

I'm a Network Engineer, Network & System Admin, Help Desk & AV support for a company of 50 people. When things are humming the way they should, I have plenty of time to research and specs out future projects. I'm currently testing to upgrade from Exchange 03 to Exchange 07 and to Exchange 2010. Next project is to upgrade from BE 11d to BE 2010 (with the dedup feature). Pending project is to implement a video conference solution in house. Upcoming project is to upgrade to Windows 2008 DC/AD environment. You have to find time to do all these researches for your personal growth as well. I'm currently working to get my CCNA certificate by using the Cisco gears that I've purchased in the past.