by Kevin Loney

This article is part of a set of articles and other materials for new DBAs. It first appeared at http://www.kevinloney.com.

About once a week, I receive queries from people who want to become DBAs. The questions normally follow this format:

"I’m just now starting out as a DBA. Should I get certified?"

The answer, as I’ll explain in this article, is "probably not yet". Certification is a step along the way, but it is not the end goal for all DBAs. Focusing on certification prevents people from developing and practicing the techniques and abilities that are critical to success as a DBA. Certification focuses on the technical aspects of the DBA job, and the technology is the easy part.

I became a DBA because back in 1987 I had the least amount of seniority on my team. Those with more seniority took the application architecture and development roles. However, those developers failed to see that the DBA role is uniquely positioned to influence all aspects of an application. DBAs routinely deal with application developers, application end users, managers, system administrators, and network administrators. Depending on the organization, the DBA may also be regularly meeting with the CIO and the budgeting team as well as outside vendors. Each of those relationships presents an opportunity.

Consider a consulting company for a moment. The leaders of consulting companies are rarely the people who are the most technical; rather, the leaders are those people who are best able to create and maintain relationships with diverse customers. That is the same set of skills DBAs must have. You must be able to develop effective relationships with each of the teams you regularly work with and serve. If you are a brilliant technical DBA but are unable to maintain your customer relationships, you have two choices: find a position that requires little interpersonal interaction or get used to hopping from one company to another. The skills that a DBA practices every day position him or her for leadership in many areas, and allow the DBA to influence directions within many customer groups.

An ideal DBA communicates effectively both in writing and in speaking. To develop these skills, give presentations and then listen to or watch a tape of the presentation. Write articles, memos, and training materials. Try to write effectively, keeping your status memos to a 10-line maximum. Edit your resume, with all of your relevant experience fitting on one page. Your status memos advertise your communications skills to your superiors; your resume advertises your communications skills to your potential employers. As for presentations, each presentation I’ve ever given has been a learning experience.

Building relationships and developing your communications skills is hard work. As another DBA recently told me, "the technology is the easy part". If you are starting from scratch and have the opportunity to test and play with databases, it will probably take you 18 to 24 months to develop the technical expertise necessary to become an experienced DBA. It will take you at least that long to develop the communications skills necessary to effectively implement that experience in a way that helps your users.

What part does certification play? Well, certification tests do not grade your ability to deliver a presentation, explain a service outage to non-DBAs, or deliver a training class. If you have 3 months of DBA work and certification under your belt, you are not guaranteed a senior DBA position. Rather, you are guaranteed the opportunity to work with a diverse set of customers. Then, after you’ve spent several years learning the questions to ask, the answers to give, and the responses to expect, you can move on. At that point, certification becomes a potential direction – as part of an ongoing technical education process.

Certification may be the answer in some situations. It may be part of the job description for a position you want, in which case the priority you place upon it will increase. It may be a personal goal you’ve set. It may be leverage you can use in salary negotiations. Regardless, being certified – or being a technical wizard - doesn’t make you an effective DBA. Being able to effectively communicate and maintain relationships with your customers makes you effective. And the most effective DBAs can select the positions and career paths that suit their needs and interests.

Coming in the next article: The interview questions you should be asking