Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
I would like to have feedback from the serverfault community about my database administration career.
I used to use mainly Linux for 14+ years. I worked as a network administrator at a small ISP, being responsible to install, configure, and maintain a dozen servers. I have a few small open sourced projects coded in C and Perl. I must admit that my knowledge of Linux servers is broader than Windows servers.
In the last 5 years somewhat my career has changed a little: I have been the so-called “accidental DBA” on SQL Server. My job requires me to administer production SQL Servers, do a lot of T-SQL coding, and deal with performance tuning, troubleshooting and general database mantenance issues.
I have been an IT generalist, and I feel the need to specialize in something. I have just decided to go on to a DBA career. Five years being a part time accidental DBA made me thirsty for being recognized as a professional DBA and gain deeper knowledge of databases systems.
I must admit that I like SQL Server very much, for some reasons:
- It is a solid product. In those 5 years I had never had a serious issue. My disaster recovery plan is used only for testing and training.
- The official documentation is throughout, vast. There are lots of books, articles, forums, and a great community.
- T-SQL programmability is decent.
My decision must go now on what product I should specialize in. As a Linux guy, going into SQL Server as a professional DBA makes me feel that I am throwing my past experience out the window, as I understand that I must “breathe” SQL Server and a purely Microsoft world to be truly good at it. Besides the reasons shown above, I know that 5 years with production experience on SQL Server makes a lot of difference.
I have less experience with another DBMS:
- I use PostgreSQL with some software I coded, and I like it. Unfortunately, I think that it would narrow my job possibilities, since it is less widely used than SQL Server. The number of jobs posted can show this.
- Never had experience with Oracle and DB2. They are nice because they are solid, widely used and multi-platform and run under Linux.
I know that it is a difficult decision, but I ask you for some advice to help me decide my DBMS product of specialization. Should I go deeper with SQL Server or learn another DBMS?
Your help will be much appreciated.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
I would stick with SQL Server, honestly like you say, it is a great product, and in terms of performance it ranks up there with the rest of them. I also like the fact that SQL Server has excellent documentation, T-SQL is pretty good, and understanding how the database works is fairly simple again as the documentation is clear.
I sense you have a strong loyalty and preference to Linux as the host OS, this too is totally understandable, but make no mistake, MS SQL Server on Windows is a serious database as you rightly note, and being a specialist in SQL server with do more than put food on your table.
I have a background in FreeBSD, and today mainly administer MS SQL Server, and I have found that my FreeBSD background has given me the ability to have a much finer grasp of issues that you face when tuning and administering the MS SQL Databse (things such as disk volume layout and optimization, location of transaction logs etc.)
If you enjoy the product, like the way it is put together, and you can see yourself doing that more and more, go for it. Don’t under estimate the value of being interested in, and enjoying the product you work on.
Check more discussion of this question.