Tips and Tricks for a DEV DBA

Tips and tricks for a dev DBA

                The dev DBA role has become a very critical role in organizations that the success of the role speaks much tons for its self.  Depending on company(product area) you work, the priority of the responsibility  may change  but the core responsibilities will not have significant diversification.  

                I have been a dev DBA for approximately for four year and over the years I have collected a few tips and tricks that I think have assisted me to progress well in this capacity.

What can we do as DBA’s to turn things a round               

o    Don’t be a blocking issue

                                This is the most important aspects of been a dev DBA. If you don’t find a win win situation you will be considered a blocking issue and this does not go well with the product owners. I have been personally held responsible for attempting to chock a release because of suggesting significant changes late in the release cycle.               

o    Get the dev teams to understand how much it hurts the DB when data is accessed in undesirable manner.

o    Knowing your data using database profiling ( include Dinesh Asanka sql server performance link)
        Identifying repeating procedure calls with the same parameter
        Identifying repeating procedure calls with the same parameter but with irregular counts

                               

o    Spend sufficient time with the development team in understanding there technical challenges.

                                The chances are that, depending on the development approach, the way data is accessed will change and the two scents of dev DBA will be significantly appreciated in getting approach correct the first time.

o    Assisting with performance testing strategies

                This one of the areas where a dev DBA can bring lot of value to the project. As  a DBA you will be more aware of the areas where it hurts most in the database and guiding the performance testers in creating appropriate test scenarios for the obvious performance concerns. This will decide how well the application enhancement or new feature will live in the production.

o    Working with the tech leads and architects

                        Development leads and architects will almost all the time focus on getting a task completed in the shortest possible time frame. Their general instinct is to have a workable approach ready for the rest of the dev folks to keep coding and most times come short on the decision because they don’t look at the approach from a data owners perspective. By inviting yourself (dev DBA) into such design discussions and brining light to the leads and architects, designs will have better balance of how it should represent itself production.

        FYI : I have invited myself into many recurring design meetings and not said a word but gathered valuable details on the designs and provided feedback to other teams from data owners perspective which helps the general architecture of the application.

o    Initiatives

        As some of you may already know, DBA’s aren’t the most busiest people in the house. But when there is work we seriously have to knock on wood. So during the not so busy time it always better to have some initiatives lined up which will bring value to the company process and at the same time help you at the time of the score cards, increments , confirmations. Following are some of the initiatives that I have lined up  for myself. Some of them are self explanatory and other I will blog on them a later time.

   -     Patch tracking

   -     Backward compatibility

   -     Anticipating load from a API perspective

   -     Sub system specific ERD’s

I have been privileged to work at different capacities as a dev DBA along with the experience, I have gathered many soft skills and learnt many lessons that has helped me to succeed  at this capacity.