I sincerely believe the key to your future as a DBA is your ability to automate everything you do. However, the single hardest thing that you have to do is keep up with the changing business and IT environment, which means, deployments. Lots of deployments.
How are you going to get that done?
Cathrine Wilhelmsen
I have to admit, publicly, when I first met Cathrine, I was not the nicest person. I just couldn’t believe that this person who sounded like they were from Ohio was actually Norwegian. I asked for her drivers license. Thankfully, Cathrine forgave me my rudeness and I’m very grateful for that. The reason I’m grateful is, she’s seriously on top of her game when it comes to automation.
At the upcoming Redgate Streamed event, April 1-3, you can listen to what Cathrine has to say about how she’s getting automation done using Azure DevOps. I feel like I have a handle on getting stuff done there, but I also know, there’s always more to learn. Further, I know Cathrine well enough to say that I’m going to learn from her. You can too.
Redgate Streamed is a #sqlfamily event that we’re putting on to try to help make up for the fact that so many of the in-person events have been cancelled or postponed. You still need to get your learn on and we want to help.
Please, follow the link and get registered. Also know that we’re going to be donating to the WHO Covid-19 response fund based on our registrations for this event.
Hard to imagine someone nicknamed “the Scary DBA” might be rude.
We embarked on building out deploy pipelines a few years ago, starting with a strong push to have databases in source control. We are now at the point that most production deploys are almost routine, dependable and predictable. Even our Product Owners (obviously an Agile shop) know what DevOps means and most manage their backlogs there.
It was by no means easy. We had some really dedicated people, including both DBAs, who devoted a lot of effort to working the details out. The team (known as the Continuous Delivery Action Team or CDAT) devoted time alongside their other responsibilities. This was not an official project but a group of IT people who knew there was a better way. As a company we are the better for it.
It is by no means easy and it will make you question many internal processes. But if change is inevitable why not change for the better and improve other processes along the way? We are far from done but IT management absolutely sees it as time and money well spent. Indeed, without DevOps and automation we would likely never complete meaningful sprints in 2 weeks.
Great story! Thanks for sharing. It mirrors what I see all the time. This stuff really is worth it. It ain’t easy, but it’s great.