diligentdba

This is in response to Thomas LaRock’s Meme Monday…What I want from Microsoft for Christmas.

Microsoft has made no bones about being developer friendly and far less IT Pro friendly in the past – starting with Steve Ballmer’s chant at Tech Ed 2006 and increasing focus on Azure development. Let me talk about the Azure part first. I work in a small town (Louisville, KY). Louisville is a hub for health care companies. Out here there is no major stampede to go the cloud way. I organize one Azure bootcamp every year (this year will be the third) – via http://azurebootcamps.com. The attendance for these is a small fraction of what I get at another event – the SQL Saturday, also organized every year. That is not to say there is no interest in the cloud, just that there is far less interest than there is for ‘regular’ SQL Server stuff. Also most of the 250+ crowd we get at SQL Saturdays are DBAs. Or atleast developer cum DBAs’. That is right. Not just developers.
 Where I work – we are a premier customer for Microsoft. We spent a major part of our precious time over the past month trying to work out new licensing issues around SQL Server. When I say ‘we’ – I meant our DBA team and manager team. We did look into comparative prices quoted by Oracle, and even options to go the MySQL way. We presented again our argument for sticking with SQL Server, and it was passed by upper management. When I say ‘we’, again Microsoft, no developers here. Just plain ole’ DBA’s trying to champion the cause of SQL Server. And in the process give you more business.

It takes a lot more than developers to run an IT shop. Even in a future world where everything goes the cloud way, maybe..there will still be people needed to work out business strategies,cost effectiveness, monitor database growth and let management know to expect more costs, or other strategies in case of growth. There will be people need to review table design, do code reviews, pass QA – everything. Now you may not call them DBA’s but you still need them. So. Show us some love. Talk more about the future of non developer jobs with cloud and other technologies coming on. Make us feel our valuable time and investment in your product and community surrounding it has been worth our while. Please.