Re: Death of the DBA

From: Mladen Gogala <mladen_at_bogus.email.invalid>
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 2009 11:47:13 +0000 (UTC)
Message-ID: <h6ols1$ar4$4_at_solani.org>

On Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:19:24 -0700, joel garry wrote:

> But, the platform is virtual. At least that's what they tell me those
> guys are doing.
>
>

>> > the increasing database work going to India,
>>
>> The problem with the databases is that they usually contain vital
>> company data. Most of the serious companies would think twice before
>> moving the critical data overseas. I know of no bank or health
>> insurance company that would allow its crucial business database(s) to
>> be dislocated. What goes to India is development, not DBA work.

>
> What about this cloud thingy?

Same as "paperless office", "grid" or "MIPS". Alphabet soup with the sole purpose of pushing sales. What is worrying is the fact that the management culture is somewhat in decline and there are growing numbers of magazine buyers. PHB reads a magazine and decides that his IT department needs a cloud. And he goes out and buys it. More often than not, the money spent on the latest paradigm ends up being wasted. Lately, I read that Django, Ruby on Rails or Symfony will kill Java, EJB and Hibernate, but I don't see that happening. What I do see happening is JBoss killing Weblogic, but that's another story.

> Of course, with 3 laws, you need to come up with a zeroth law:
>
> A database must not give Larry less money, or through inaction, allow
> money to be taken away from Larry.

I don't think so. Right now, I am involved in a project meant to rid an established NYC company with the offices on the Times Square of good portion of its Oracle RDBMS and switch it to Postgres. The reason for that are greedy Larry's minions and their behavior. You see, I am reluctant to put my fate into the hands of Bill or Larry. I am trying to be an overall technology expert, with a strong expertise in Linux, scripting languages and databases. That's my job. I don't work for Oracle, I don't want to depend on them.

-- 
http://mgogala.freehostia.com

Received on Sat Aug 22 2009 - 06:47:13 CDT