The Future of DBA: Adapting to a New World of IT -- This presentation reviews the forces, trends and analyst research that is shaping the changing role of the DBA, along with the new skills required from DBAs in the current IT market (Key Terms: Database, DBMS, DevOps, Data Champion, DBA, The Cloud, NoSQL, MongoDB, MySQL, ScaleBase, Gartner)

1. The Future of the DBA:
Adapting to a New World of IT
June 2014

2. 2
The Future of DBA: Adapting to a New World of IT
This presentation reviews the forces, trends
and analyst research that is shaping the
changing role of the DBA, along with the
new skills required from DBAs in the
current IT market

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3 Recent Trends in the IT World
1. Open Source
Instead of using Oracle and other expensive databases, organizations
have discovered they could achieve the same goals with open source
projects such as Linux and MySQL.
2. Cloud
Since the advent of the cloud, most organizations rarely invest in
expensive on-premises hardware. This has been replaced with
applications and infrastructure on demand
3. NoSQL
An easy and scalable database solution. One of the main
differentiation between NoSQL and MySQL is NoSQL’s schema-less
nature. With MySQL, the application always needs to be aware of the
data model of the schema

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The Two Types of DBAs
• Infrastructure DBA (iDBA) — responsible for managing
and administering the database
• Application DBA (aDBA) — responsible for ensuring the
database knows how to speak with the application
The world of cloud-based
application platforms has
brought significant changes
to these DBA roles…

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From Then to Now – The iDBA Role
Then: On-premises
• Support the infrastructure and ensure operations ran smoothly.
• Responsible for the data’s integrity, availability, and reliability — while
making sure the machines worked efficiently 24/7.
• Ensure backup and recovery — no small responsibility
Today: With the cloud
• iDBAs employed by the cloud service providers
• With the private cloud, the iDBA became the hand that
delivers database as a service (DBaaS) dictating the new
policy, where the administration tasks are now automated and
standardized

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From Then to Now – The aDBA Role
Then: On-premises
• Focused and is the foremost authority on data in the context of
application development.
• The main goal of the aDBA was (and still is) to make the
database optimal for the application, and conversely make the
application congruent with the database
Today: With the cloud
• The aDBA role hasn’t really changed much.
• Remain the advisors of the app, and guide R&D through the right
course of action when writing code and queries. The major
• Consolidated to include some iDBA aspects

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The Data Champion
• Today, the traditional separation between the application
stack and the infrastructure layer blurred
 and the aDBA is evolving into an aDBA / iDBA
hybrid – the Data Champion
• With the onset of Agile, DBAs need to
– Take quick decisions on production
– Be Flexible
– Be innovative
– Have complete responsibility on production

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NoSQL, DevOps and The DBA Challenge
• DBAs make up only 5.5% of NoSQL users.
• Gartner’s conclusion that “DBAs are not part of the
NoSQL conversation” seems accurate
http://blogs.gartner.com/nick-heudecker/nosql-shouldnt-mean-nodba/

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NoSQL, DevOps and The DBA Challenge
• With the onset of DevOps-type roles, the System
Administrator and R&D positions have changed in order
to adapt to the new circumstance.
• It is clear that due to the game changing nature of
NoSQL, the DBA team must undergo similar changes.

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The NoSQL Misconception
There is a common misconception that NoSQL will render
the DBA position irrelevant.
This could not be farther from the truth:
“DBAs, intentionally or not, are being eliminated from a rapidly growing area of
information management. Application developers may be getting what they
want from NoSQL now, but cutting out the primary data stewards will result in
long-term data quality and information governance challenges for the larger
enterprise.”
http://blogs.gartner.com/nick-heudecker/nosql-shouldnt-mean-nodba/

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DevOps and The NoSQL Misconception
• DevOps are the “cool” cloud guys who promote the trendy NoSQL
revolution, in which the world is schema-less and much easier to
maintain, implying that DBAs are no longer required.
• The fact remains that data is the most significant IT asset for any
organization.
• There will always be a need for experts who know how to maintain,
backup, and secure data. Wherever there is data there should be a
database expert.
• The DevOps movement should not be about lack of responsibility;
but rather about engagement and communication between the
various software development parties.
• Developers, DevOps and Ops must recognize that the database
expert is crucial to the entire process.

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The Future of DBAs
• The fast-paced developments of the IT world are causing
significant changes to the traditional DBA role. In order to
remain relevant, the DBA position must adapt to the
changing times.
• The introduction of the Data Champion has been an
excellent start to the evolution of the DBA role into a
profession suited for the modern environment.
• The next step of DBAs must be coming to terms with the
impact of NoSQL, and adapting accordingly. As Gartner
so eloquently wrote: “NoSQL doesn’t mean NoDBA.”

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ScaleBase:
Become an iDBA while keeping all your aDBA skills
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cloud which deploys in minutes and enables you to scale out to an
unlimited number of users, data and transactions. It is a horizontally
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workloads and availability by logically distributing data across public,
private and geo-distributed clouds.
Contact Us
sales@scalebase.com
or
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http://www.scalebase.com/software/
Use your relational aDBA skills
and get NoSQL capabilities

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