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The Self-Taught DBA

By : Brad McGehee May 06, 2002

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Getting Real World Experience

This is the toughest part, and one I can’t help you with much. Even the best read DBA in the world is not really prepared to face the real world without some experience. But how do you get the experience if someone won’t give you the opportunity?

Most of the DBAs I know didn’t plan to become DBAs, they fell into it because they were working on a related project. For example, perhaps they were developers, NT or Windows 2000 administrators, or maybe they became a Microsoft Access wizard, and then decided to trade up. In other words, they didn’t start out which any formal training or experience either, but when the opportunity arose to use SQL Server in some way, they took the opportunity to gain as much experience as they could, and then leveraged it to become full-time DBAs. That’s what I did.

If you are really interested in becoming a DBA, for whatever reason, the barriers aren’t insurmountable. All it takes is time, patience, and a desire to learn.