There's a bright future for top DBAs in the cloud world. Managed cloud database services like Amazon RDS automate database deployment, backups, recovery, HA, DR, upgrades, patching and cloning. All of these things should be more or less automated anyway if a DBA has been in their position for a while and is doing their job fairly well. The benefit of using the cloud's automation over your own is that it has been produced as a commercial service, subjected to the standards of such a service, and perfected by having to run correctly every time on tens of thousands of systems for many years.
DBAs with responsibilities for managed cloud databases still need to be architects, designers, tuning experts and leaders to software development groups, so that their organization makes use of database technology wisely and effectively. The cloud is a net positive to high-value IT contributors by relieving the organization and its employees of the undifferentiated heavy lifting of routine tasks. It elevates DBAs and makes them more influential.
I think DBAs today should become experts in architecture, design, tuning, and multiple database engines and types. Oracle DBAs should probably move in the PostgreSQL direction, as that engine has become a favorite of enterprises moving off Oracle. You won't find PostgreSQL as wonderful as Oracle in every way (except one - price), but it has been improving rapidly, and suits many use cases already. The flip side of PostgreSQL's smaller feature set is that it makes it relatively easy to learn. Some companies like AWS (with the new edition of Aurora) and EnterpriseDB are making a concerted effort to build enterprise features onto PostgreSQL.
Not all clouds are the same. Some boast only one managed database type, and as soon as you want to use another type, you have to go deploy and manage it yourself on a VM. Some clouds have ten years of maturity, while others were openly mocking the concept up until eighteen months ago. Some have huge geographical presence, orders of magnitude higher adoption, broad and deep service ecosystems.
And also some have me and Kyle :-)
Please let me know if you have questions about clouds or AWS in general. I'm in the belly of the beast and happy to be a resource.
Jeremiah
From: "Tim Gorman" <tim.evdbt_at_gmail.com>
To: "Oracle Mailing List" <oracle-l_at_freelists.org>
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2016 9:09:16 AM
Subject: Re: Oracle DBA to PostGreSQL DBA?
Bear in mind that the "cloud" has three layers: IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.
SaaS (software as a service) involves complete IT solutions (i.e. Salesforce, Google Calendar, NetSuite, etc), so it means the elimination of most IT roles.
PaaS (platform as a service) basically means tools like databases, with AWS RDS as a classic example. With PaaS migration, the cloud company is supporting a limited set of database choices, and companies are developing solutions with those tools.
IaaS (infrastructure as a service) basically means "servers" and "storage", with AWS EC2 and S3 being classic examples, respectively. With IaaS, the SysAdmin role along with the datacenter has largely been eliminated, and DBAs, developers, and application admins are allocating virtual machines in IaaS. Migrating to IaaS is largely no different than migrating to different servers. The major gotcha is the OS platform, as most IaaS vendors only support x86 servers running Linux and Windows. Solaris, AIX, and HP-UX are largely supported only be vendor IaaS offerings, and they will soon be extinct. With IaaS migration, databases and applications are not "supported" by the cloud company unless such a service is purchased additionally.
So while "most companies" are indeed migrating to the "cloud", sometimes they are migrating to IaaS (a.k.a. someone else's servers), sometimes they are migrating to PaaS (a.k.a. someone else's tools), and sometimes they are migrating to SaaS (i.e. someone else's IT department).
The driving factor isn't necessarily lower cost, but more agility. As such, production systems are certain to migrate last, but non-production environments are certain to migrate first into what is called "hybrid data center".
Understand which choice your company is making, and plan accordingly.
If someone says "my company isn't migrating to the cloud", then someone is swimming in de Nile.
On 12/16/16 09:44, Mike Killough wrote:
That's a good point. I think that once there are no more premises databases, I will hit the retirement finish line anyway.
Mike
From: Dennis Williams <oracledba.williams_at_gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, December 16, 2016 10:39 AM
To: tim.evdbt_at_gmail.com
Cc: mwkillough_at_hotmail.com ; oracle-l-freelists
Subject: Re: Oracle DBA to PostGreSQL DBA?
All - I just saw an article stating that most companies are migrating to the cloud, so using the databases easily available and supported by the cloud company.
