T-SQL Tuesday

I love this month’s T-SQL Tuesday question. So I thought I would jump in and see if I could contribute to the discussion.

Why are DBA skills Necessary?

Keeping track of your data – Maybe this is more of a discussion on why you should use a database, but I think most companies now understand the importance of keeping data long term in an organized and retrievable format. Data that includes, but is not limited to, sales, manufacturing, customers, employees, vendors, and schedules just to name a few.

Backing up your data – So many applications that are purchased for business today require a database to be built behind it or will install one. With T-SQL skills you should know how to back up all that important data that you have for the company, and even more importantly, the knowledge of restoring the data.

Performance – I cannot tell you how many times as a consultant I have been approached with one performance problem or another. It’s understandable. One client that I worked with had an assembly line, and on the line there was over 120 scan points, depending on what the status was of a package the route could be adjusted. After talking to the client and watching their system for about 30 minutes it was easy to see how they were able to figure out that a 5 minute delay on the line could cost thousands of dollars. Poor performance meant that packages were not being routed, and they had to take another trip around the loop. When the line was not full this meant you had employees sitting around rather than making sure quality was good. Truck drivers were stalled causing other trucks to back up in the parking lots.

Listen to what your data tells you – Assume your company keeps sales information in the database. What regions are selling the best? What regions need the most help? Are you throwing away money when you continue to support areas of sales that are not producing, and could you maximize your profits by adding additional support for the areas that are doing the best? What if you take people from the poor performing parts of the company and see if they can learn something new from the parts of the company that are doing well. Your data can tell you a lot about how efficient your company is.

End result: to stay competitive today, chances are you are going to need a database to help make you better at what you do. But for the database to provide the information that you want and need, you must have the skill set to keep it running and performing well.