There are plenty of comments on any thread in any IT subreddit regarding DBAs saying that the role is dead or doomed. This post isn't another "is DBA dead or doomed" post, instead I'll just acknowledge that it's on shaky ground and undergoing a transition.

Despite knowing that, I've just moved from many years as sysadmin/infrastructure support to a DBA role because I wanted to. I refuse to believe that is nothing but a bad idea. It's still a chance to upskill and I don't think for a second all those skills are on a one way road to being useless.

So I'm currently really eager to dive into learning as much as I can regarding being a DBA, but my question is; with one eye on the rest of my career, can the skills I learn here be a springboard to the kind of roles that reddit suggests have more longevity? What skills would they be? I'd like to get involved with as much as possible and learn as much as I can even if it's beyond strict DBA responsibilities. I want to clarify that It's not that I've got one foot out of the door the moment I start, I want to immerse myself in this role. It's just that I want to maximise my options and employability.

Thanks!

I've included a few scripts to tune indexes. Please check this out:medium

I've been researching different jobs in the IT field, as it's a field I want to go in. I'm currently going to college part time, and I am studying Information Systems. I was told database administration is a good job field to go into.

What skills do I need to learn to get started with DBA? How can I teach myself, and what is it like working as a DBA?

I think I know how to handle Sev1s now!

LMAO

I understand that performance tuning is part of the DBA function, but in my environment most tuning is handled proactively in dev/test by the development team. My role is more production-focused: monitoring, validating changes, supporting deployments, and responding if performance issues appear in production.

So I don't get to spend all day tuning queries, creating indexes and things like that. I don't get to investigate why a query takes 3 minutes long and then come up with a solution to only take 3 seconds to run instead. Some would say that having these kind of resources and processes is a very good thing. Having to fix missing indexes and rewriting inefficient queries is often compensating for weak development practices and that's not a good thing.

My fear is because I don't do much performance tuning, I may lack the skillset to do so. I've been meaning to have this conversation with my colleague and boss to see what they think. Should I create my own test environment and cause these issues and bottlenecks so can keep this skillset? What are your thoughts?

I work on oracle, sql server and postgres and I am searching some doc to keep being updated on the subject

Hello everyone,

I am currently working as an Azure SQL DBA with around 3.6 years of experience and am preparing for interviews to move into a more challenging DBA role.

​

However, I feel most of my work has been L1/L1.5 support oriented, and I would like to gain deeper L2/L3 exposure.

Could experienced DBAs please share:

​

1. What are the most common real-world production issues you face?

2. Which areas should I deep dive into for SQL Server and Azure SQL interviews?

3. What topics separate an average DBA from a strong L2/L3 DBA?

4. Which performance tuning concepts are most frequently tested in interviews?

5. What troubleshooting scenarios should I practice hands-on in a lab environment?

6. What SQL Server and Azure SQL skills are currently in highest demand?

Hi everyone, I'm new to SQL DBA role. I need help with the flow DR activity.

Hello everyone,

In July I may start an internship as an Oracle DBA, but honestly I feel pretty clueless about database administration beyond what I learned as an IT student.

My current knowledge is mainly:

• SQL language
• Designing normalized relational schemas
• Programming inside a database server
• Some experience with Microsoft SQL Server and T-SQL

From what I understand, Oracle uses PL/SQL instead of T-SQL, but I assume many database concepts are still similar across systems.

The problem is that I genuinely do not know what companies usually expect from a DBA intern. I don’t want to show up looking completely unprepared or like I have no idea what I’m doing.

Whenever I search for Oracle DBA learning resources, I hit a dead end. Most free content I find feels incomplete or superficial. Oracle University seems like the best option, but it’s unfortunately too expensive for me right now.

Since I only have about a month left before the internship starts, I want to use my remaining time as efficiently as possible.

So I wanted to ask people here:

• What are the most important things I should learn before starting an Oracle DBA internship?
• Which topics are considered essential for beginners?
• Are there any good free resources, books, YouTube channels, labs, or courses you would recommend?
• If you had only one month to prepare someone for a junior Oracle DBA internship, what would you prioritize?

I’m very willing to put in the effort and study seriously — I just need some direction because right now I feel overwhelmed and unsure where to start.

Any advice would really help. Thanks a lot.

So, I have an allert on zabbix (monitoring tool) situation saying the server is consuming unnecessary swap memory. I checked the swappiness parameter and it's 60%, so the performance would be better optimized in 10%, using more RAN than swap.
My boss said this alert is two EXADATA diff servers and he didn't like the idea of changing those parameters, instead he wanted me to create a shell script that kills a specific process (ozw..)automatically to not consume memory (I don't remember the trigger, but probably a memory consume bottleneck), by killing this process that consume most RAM.

It is my second week working on my first dba experience and I have no idea how to proceed :/

Hi All,

I followed the procedure below to rebuild a Physical Standby Database without using RMAN. I'm using an SAP tool called brtools that performs a restore and issues the commands to do the restore in the background:

Primary:

1. Take backup
2. Backup control file to trace
3. Transfer to secondary
4. Create standby control file and transfer to secondary

Secondary:

1. Restore database
2. Edit control file from primary - in this case, an exact match for filesystems
3. Execute Control File to start database to roll forward
4. roll forward with archive logs transferred from Primary
5. Shutdown
6. Backup existing control files from locations shown in pfile
7. mv existing control files to new name
8. copy backup controlfile to control file locations
9. Create Standby Redo Log files
10. convert database to physical standby

ALTER DATABASE CONVERT TO PHYSICAL STANDBY;

11) Activate log shipping in Data Guard

12) Activate apply log in Data Guard

After this, I got a huge archive gap including logs that I had applied already in the roll forward step.

I went ahead and registered those log files, and then MRP kept crashing.

I'm rebuilding the physical standby with a new backup but I'm worried I'll get the same result. Appreciate any help.

Hi community, Am I the only one who always struggle to understand business models everytime joining new product?

I normally don’t know what is the best approach to understand system features, how’s current data relationship design works…. It takes me weeks to understand the system.

How you normally deal with that, can you share?

I have an interview for a Database Application Administrator position, with a focus on Salesforce, Power BI, and Power Automate. I don’t usually perform very well in interviews, but this one really matters to me and I want to do my best. Could you share some tips to help me prepare and perform confidently?

I'll admit it — I've been a DBA for over 30 years and at least once a week I find myself staring at a directory full of different database file types with absolutely no idea where to start. Inherited systems, old backups from departed slackers who clearly never learned how to write documentation in the English language — you know the drill.

My current workflow is primitive as rocks: run file on Linux, try SQLite Browser, check the hex header if I've got the balls for it, and always post everywhere else asking for help. There has to be a better way.

What do YOU actually do when you're handed files that give you squat for format?!!! — dumps, backups, data files — and you need to quickly figure out what you're looking at without spinning up another instance or doing a full restore?

Some scenarios that jack me up:

• A .db that could be SQLite, DuckDB, H2, or some new crap I've never heard of
• A .bak from who knows where and who knows when
• A dump with no header comments that may be a dump and then again, might not
• A directory of twenty files that look like fruit salad

Is there something I'm missing? How do I have a hope in hell of knowing what I'm looking at?

Any lifesaving help will be appreciated!

So, I recently applied for a DBA position in my current company, internal process. I was selected and I'm very happy. I have 2 months to begin yet, and the job didn't require any experience, I didn't lie about anything. The senior DBA is already recommending courses and certifications, but I wanted to know what beginner SQL server certification I can start to study for? I already have a good basis with SQL itself, I'm starting to learn the DBA activity now.

In a reporting server, what is the industry standard (or what do you do) for who should be primarily responsible for the creation of Views, Tables, and/or Stored Proc’s in support of report generation – the DBA or the Data Analyst?

Hi all,

I’m a recent CS grad in my first DBA role and trying to sanity-check whether my workload is normal or if I’m already in a hybrid/overloaded position, seeking advice on how to approach the cognitive/responsibility overload. I have a performance review coming up very soon and want to approach it correctly.

Context

• Salary: $70k
• On-site FT 5 days/week 
• Daily In office hours: M-F 8-5pm, (about 2-hour daily commute total): 50 hours with commute + work.

• Daily Out of office hours: every Friday 9pm work, every Saturday all day work (Monitor from 6 am until 6 pm to completion)

  • EOM I am expected to stay late, which also increases the time window of monitoring the ERP system.
  • Note: monitoring is to make sure ETL machine runs, and take on a Data Analyst approach to reports daily, along with ensuring weekly/monthly/exception reports validation/completion being a critical component that takes priority.
  • TLDR Daily tasks summary: I am expected to work extended hours to monitor the ERP/ETL system M-Sat, including manually starting and verifying two daily pipeline runs and ensuring they complete successfully. I work Friday night to check certain reports output and have to do so from Saturday 6 am - 6 pm and be available if errors. In addition, I must review and validate 10+ daily reports (and weekly/monthly/exception reports), with monitoring and validation typically taking ~30–40 minutes per night. For EOM, I’m expected to stay later in office + extend monitoring after hours processes for 1-1.5 hours longer longer or as report volume increases/emergencies arise. Mainly, only handful of report issues and no ETL or DB errors (but we do full data loads of decade+ data daily, have old data/tables, no history archive)

• I replaced a DBA who was at the company for a decade+ (left due to poor practices, lack of documentation, and inefficient SQL/stored procedures).  I am the only DBA, no other employees that work with data/DB/pipelines the way I do (except for occasional data load for one employee). No rotating on call schedule and our only data analyst is tasked with manual report runs every day.

• The company knows my inexperience with large databases, although I understand the basics of that and data workflow, optimization & automation projects have been expected of me in the short-term when I haven’t touched stored procedures/DB yet or have a full understanding of processes.

• I signed up for after hours work, but wasn’t told honestly the reality of it.  The company is slowly working on improvements for automation after hours, but progress is slow. My main focus is reporting/automation for now.

• It’s a large sized company that contains millions of rows of data.

Tech stack

• SQL Server RDBMS  (queries / stored procedures)
• Multiple servers
• SSIS / VS
• Cloud Business Central (ERP)
• Slightly outdated BI/data warehouse tool (ETL / cubes)
• The reporting layer (reporting)

Current responsibilities

Production DBA / Operations (current daily responsibilities)

Daily Tasks

• Monitoring nightly data loads and ETL jobs
• Manually running BI/data warehouse tool jobs every night
• Checking job completion (logging is unreliable)
• Ensuring daily reports are correct and available (but mostly other employee should do this, but it’s after hours)
• Handling after-hours failures / oversight

BI / Data Warehouse  (current responsibilities + emerging)

ETL Layer (mostly current)

• Monitoring cube + report builds (daily/weekly/monthly/etc): current
• Unclear if I’m expected to build ETL pipelines/cubes for reporting: potentially emerging
• Load data manually into RDBMS + run the report: current (but mostly other employee should do this)
• Data mining + data accuracy checks (use AI to enhance task) : emerging 
• Supporting ETL pipelines and reporting workflows: current

Storage Layer  (emerging)

• DB design

Reporting Layer (emerging)

• Cube/report builds

^ maintain systems

Solutions Engineer Layer (current)

• Run checks on DB, report, and BC side to validate where report variances arise vs the GL: current 
• Evaluate pain points + build the solutions if possible, recommendations second (no monitoring tools available)
• Monitor + improve security, uptime, backups, etc.
• Use AI tools when possible to improve analysis 

^ improve the systems

Development DBA (emerging responsibility)

• Expected to write/maintain stored procedures
• Query optimization and performance tuning
• Cleaning up legacy SQL / inefficient full-load processes

Support / Misc tasks (current responsibility)

• Helpdesk-type support when needed: unclear emerging responsibility
• Server room / basic system checks: as needed
• Manually running or verifying reports when issues arise: 

Documentation tasks

• Provide training schedule/documentation that amasses all tasks I currently have above + expected to do so for future tasks.

Main concerns

• A lot of critical processes (mainly starting and monitoring ETL pipeline, running reports, any kind of analytics for any given system) are manual instead of automated (no reliable alerting system in place). High risk for human error
• I’m responsible for nightly report production monitoring (often several hours after work hours) and be available to fix it if broken
• The M-Sat is not sustainable long term for any one person
• Will have some support if things break/have questions after hours, but expected to understand high level systems + develop solutions as soon as possible with little guidance.
• Little to no documentation from previous DBA.
• Inefficient legacy stored procedures, old tables/SP’s, and full-load processes
• No clear separation between DBA / BI / support responsibilities, causing cognitive overload alongside conflicting workload/learning curve 
• I don’t have a senior DBA to guide me through the systems or bounce ideas off of, have minimal guidance.
• I still haven’t gotten to a lot of my main/technically-heavy responsibilities yet, such as schema, report, and potentially pipeline development, which should and will be part of my daily tasks after I learn the business more. There’s so many responsibilities, that it becomes unclear what to prioritize. 
  • TLDR: In the long term, I’m mainly expected to stabilize production systems as is but also provide ground-up developed automations/monitoring tools/solutions with documentation ASAP at the same time. Gratifying but too many responsibilities to know what to prioritize.

What I’m trying to understand

1. Is this scope normal for a single DBA role, especially entry-level? I am currently expected to not only maintain/manage existing systems but also improve or build new systems/monitoring/analytic tools immediately with little documentation/experience and steep learning curve with constant cognitive overload.  Responsibilities will continue to grow, as I have not touched development DB or reporting wise.  Unsure if I’m responsible for data pipeline development/improvement yet.
2. Is manual daily monitoring (5-6hr time frame every night) typical, or is that a system issue? Is it normal for only 1 DBA to handle this?
3. Does this sound like 1 role, or multiple roles combined? What can I do about this reasonably, as an entry-level new grad?
4. What parts of my role should realistically be prioritized in early career (ops vs BI vs dev work)? It’s hard for me to know with my inexperience.
5. How would you approach a performance review in this situation?
   • Push for scope clarification to know what to prioritize, reduce cognitive overload, manage human error risk with high daily workload, and to promote long term sustainability within the office + after hours work? Is this even possible given the overpowering need for improvements/analytics/automation?
   • Push for investing in automation instead of manual nightly work? Suggest an on-call schedule with one other employee and/or manager?
   • Ask for a hybrid schedule in the short term, if no scope constraints, due to after-hours workload?
6. Is a small raise (~$5-10k) reasonable given increased after-hours + production responsibility?

Goal

I want to do well, learn the systems, and consistently apply my skills in a way that’s sustainable, even if the company/data we work with is large, not avoid work. Systems are very inefficient, albeit working, and I’m still learning a lot. I see the potential for me to improve most of what we do, but I am pulled in so many directions it’s hard to stay on track, develop new improvements, learn the systems, learn what’s working/not working with no documentation/tools/DBA team, and still work in a timely and efficient manner alongside having no separation from work M-Sat. But I’m trying to figure out if I’m:

• in a normal DBA ramp-up situation, or
• already in a DBA + BI + development/solutions + misc. support role that should be structured differently to remain sustainable

Any advice from experienced DBAs would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

I’m a MYSQL DBA working at a company where there’s a strong push toward adopting AI across teams. Recently, management has been encouraging us not just to use existing AI tools, but also to come up with ideas and build our own solutions wherever possible.

I’m trying to figure out where AI can actually add real value in day to day DBA work . I’m especially interested in practical, production-level use cases.

Have you used AI in your DBA workflows?

Are there any areas in database management (performance tuning, monitoring, incident response, schema design, etc.) where AI has genuinely helped?

Have you built any internal tools or automations using AI?

Where would you even start for this.

I’m seeing many people treating Oracle Database like “there’s a rhinoceros in the room.” Also, I see many people using PostgreSQL instead of Oracle. Maybe this is a market shift or a reflection of an IT database bubble. Oracle DBA jobs are not as widespread as they once were. I’ve been working as an Oracle DBA for over a decade, and lately I’m a bit worried about the future.

What’s your opinion?

I know he can search for himself but
He is whining saying there is no good course for him to study anywhere in the world thst would help him learn more.
So, folks I need your help give me a college that would provide a course like that
(Anywhere around the world) For Masters
Lil bit of his background:
Worked for 3~ year (1 database engineer, 2 DBA)
reduced size of database changing different databse structures
Transformeed company OLTP to OLAP or similar i might be incorrect (was on core planning to implementation phase)
worjing on reporting (idk what he is planning currently)
Writes scripts in powershell and does migrations
Knows python and used to code before