Where is the DBA in the DevOps conversation?

Devops engineer and analysts spend a lot of time talking about how to streamline, accelerate, and automate application development and testing and how to monitor and automate the deployment of those applications .

But when it comes to managing the database change necessary to support the application and its release processes, it seems that everyone will wait for miracle to occur.

This oversight is unfortunate. DBAs have a lot to offer when it comes to correlating the development of technology with the management of the environment in which it’s hosted. In a sense, DBAs have been DevOps all along.

On the ‘Dev’ side, DBAs carefully evaluate each change request to ensure that it is well thought out, is compliant with organizational best practices and won’t have unintended consequences on database performance or the validity of dependent objects. They have developed and tested all of the SQL that has materially changed the database and crafted it into what it is today.

On the ‘Ops’ side, DBAs have designed and provisioned the data platform. They are in charge of monitoring their databases and keeping them available and high-performing. They manage access to and the overall security of the platform. They perform release activities in support of the application and troubleshoot any errors that happen during that process or during day to day operation

Every decision a DBA makes, every process or standard they put in place is influenced by the dual nature of their role. They are used to thinking about the impact of any task, requirement, or problem from both sides.