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Anyone have suggestions for good practice materials for 70-461 and 70-462? I got thrown into the deep end as a DBA a few years back and had to pick up a lot on my feet, so I expect that I know most of the material well enough, but I need a good idea of what stupid minutiae I should bone up on (like command-line startup params) before I go burning corporate training budget on the exams. I have enough budget to take the tests and one class this year, and it sure would be nice to get the MCSA in two months rather than two years.
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Jan 14, 2013 04:38
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Frag Viper posted:For MS certs, is it recommended to start off with MTA? Or can I dive straight in to MSCA? MTAs are quicker and cheaper, if you're not sure where you're headed or don't have the resources. Think: Associate's Degree vs Bachelor's. Plenty of people take the starter, and plenty of people skip it. Yes, for the Server and DB MCSAs, you take 3 specific exams. There's a pretty large knowledge base necessary so you wouldn't want to sit through a single 6-hour test (and then have to pay $500 to re-take it if you only bombed one section). I can't speak to any others (though, the desktop one appears to be only 2).
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Jan 21, 2013 01:42
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Frag Viper posted:Ok, but how do I figure out the possible combos? Thats the ONE thing driving me crazy right now and I want to learn. There's an easier way to get the network addresses in decimal. 192. is a /24, your subnet is a /26. That means the octet in question has 2 bits of subnet and 6 bits of host. Each subnet in that octet therefore has 2^6 = 64 combinations of host bits, or in other words each one is sliced at a multiple of 64, starting at 0 and ending before 256. So 0, +64=64, +64=128, +64=196.
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Jan 23, 2013 06:46
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I posted about MCSA a page or two ago. I wasn't interested in bothering with certs until recently, so I'm playing catch-up. Which 2012 exams have you taken so far and do you have any suggestions for focus areas/study resources?
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Jan 30, 2013 02:14
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duck hunt posted:I've taken the 70-457 and 70-458. Those are the first 2 of 4 upgrade exams. If you are starting out, you can get your MCSA with 70-461, 70-462, and lastly 70-463. Honestly, if you know databases, the 461 exam is all about queries. You get a lot of freebies by just knowing databse concepts like indexing, query writing techniques, relational integrity, etc. You do have to learn the MS features and you have to learn to use SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio [basically RDBMS]). 462 has some gimmies on that too. It is "the DBA" test. Know you backups and restores inside and out, and then fill out the rest with MS specific stuff. I took and passed the 2008 versions of 461 and 462. I've been working with DBs for 4 years so I'm confident in my base knowledge, but it's asinine things like memorizing startup params that are a concern.
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Feb 4, 2013 04:05
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hayden. posted:Just edited my reply before your post. They use Microsoft stuff. BI looks like it'd be pretty applicable to my current job, but I also want something to make me easily employable in the future as well and I don't know if business intelligence will be anywhere as common as regular sys admin stuff. DBA is the more established role, but MS has been pushing extremely hard on their BI stack and the industry for it is growing pretty quickly. Both types have a high reliance on domain knowledge, as Graves noted, but BI's is about the business and you'll spend a lot more time talking to management types and app developers than a strict (non-Application) DBA would.
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Feb 8, 2013 08:34
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Tab8715 posted:What the hell is business intelligence exactly? MS provides a sample DB based on a theoretical bicycle sales company, so you'll see examples couched in that framework. Such as: how much of a particular bicycle did you sell in 2012 by region/gender/etc. You would use that to answer questions like: Were your advertising dollars worth it (did revenue go up enough compared to previous year), how many units should you stock in the warehouse/store shelves (because there's a lead time on mfr), are certain products selling much better in the B&M vs the website. Knowing what questions make sense is the business part, working the data analysis tools is the intelligence part. There's also a lot of admin knowledge that goes into administering things like the SSRS service, the SSIS packages, the MDM store, etc, even if you never write a report.
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Feb 8, 2013 18:12
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Good security demands a holistic approach, so you have to get your fingers into everything. It in particular is a topic where a couple of upper-level college courses on the topic would do you a lot of good, as opposed to any particular vendor's stamp.
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Feb 13, 2013 22:55
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Contingency posted:I took an 400-level IS Auditing course in college. Remember kids, ask the network admin if his network runs on half- or full-duplex, to show him you're tech-savvy. Well, yes, quality of courses does vary. The 300-level Comp Sec class I was in took apart the attacks on the original Diebold voting machines, which was pretty interesting and a really concrete example of security in action.
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Feb 14, 2013 07:19
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Just to add my own 2c on the 70-462 I took on Friday: I was surprised at how few questions drilled into syntax. With things like Server Core installs, WSFC and FCI setups, AGs, Full Text Search (setup and use), and all the other huge topics on the table, I was concerned about the volume of syntax you'd need to commit to memory in order to manage all of those things but in the end there were only a couple questions that asked for precise syntax. I was also surprised at how many times Replication (in all of its flavors) came up; that was something I didn't even put on my study list since there are no significant changes to it in 2012 and I've worked with it a fair bit since 2005. Overall I liked that there were a lot of questions like "which tool/config would be best to solve this need" but there were a few where that wasn't enough context given to decide confidently and/or none of the options quite fit the bill. So if you're agonizing over an answer just mark it, move on, and don't get rattled over an unfair question.
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Jun 17, 2013 19:23
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QuiteEasilyDone posted:Okay so I'm looking to setup a basic home lab to mess around with in pursuit of Microsoft, Cisco certifications and for my own general knowledge and experience. I'm a college student/helpdesk surfer so I don't have much of a budget to go on in pursuit of a lab, but feel that it's going to be necessary going forward to know physically how to perform certain tasks both from the hardware perspective and from the total system building perspective. An MSDN Premium sub retails about $3500 for the first year but entitles you to media and keys for almost every product MS has ever made both at work and at home. Get your work to buy it and you can sandbox any crazy architecture your job needs and take it home to do whatever you want in your spare time too, like setup a Hyper-V farm with Exchange, SharePoint, Lync, SQL, AD, Project Server, a SharePoint Integrated Report Server and a storage server all in separate VMs and all tightly integrated. Student/charity discount is about 75%, if you qualify for that. Retail copies also give you Perpetual Use rights after your sub expires, which essentially means you should go on a huge downloading spree before it expires and grab every interesting version/edition of anything you might ever possibly be interested in.
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Jun 22, 2013 21:30
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1000101 posted:Why not just use technet for ~300 a year? TechNet is eval-only and has business-oriented editions only meaning you're not allowed to do any day-to-day work or development on it. MSDN allows use for basically everything except true Production use, all the way up through UAT. You can make an easy argument for your business to buy MSDN licenses for your team to cover all your dev work rather than buying individual server licenses for your dev servers -- you can often pitch it as an overall cost savings to the business. If you can't get your business to buy it then yeah TechNet makes sense when spending your own dime. keseph fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Jun 23, 2013 |
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Jun 23, 2013 20:30
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:- A computer with a decent amount of memory, and HD space for your VMDKs (you will run out of memory well before hard drive space) I think most of us assume you have a gaming rig, which qualifies on the memory and space criteria. Not all server software offers extended trials, and personally I might have a few hours to work on a lab one evening and then not have time or energy to work on it again until a couple weeks later, repeat a couple times and suddenly all my 30-day trials are expiring and I need to wipe and rebuild everything, which makes me not want to waste time on it since it's just going to expire again soon anyway and I end up in a  cycle. That's a personal challenge regarding lab environments and my suggestions were colored toward dealing with it.Making unfounded assumptions is to be expected when the person asking the question doesn't (and realistically can't) give all the context for what tools and hardware they have and what strengths and weaknesses they have when learning in a lab environment. As for people describing extreme requirements, personally I like labbing a crazy corner case on the basis that it forces me to deal with a lot of extra difficulties and yield a complete solution template in my head with an understanding of all the subtle parts that go into it. Then when I arrive at a normal case, I can just strike-off all the unneeded extras and be left with a correct, working solution. However, you're absolutely right that just starting and taking a stab at something -- anything -- is a great first step instead of agonizing over the "right" plan.
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Jun 23, 2013 22:41
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Corvettefisher posted:Wait so you say some trials just aren't long enough but admit to being too lazy and pessimistic about utilizing the allotted time? Yes. I have enough laziness and pessimism to make a 30-day trial problematic for trying to learn a complicated product or system in my spare time. I have an established DBA career, a wife, and two kids; I don't have anywhere near as much spare time and energy as I did when I was working helpdesk in college. I've gotten lazy(er), complacent and entitled in my old age and expect my employer to buy Nice Things to support my learning that I turn around and use at work. Which leads to... 1000101 posted:Technet lets you run full versions of drat near everything for labbing, planning, whatever you need to do that isn't: A. production; B. related to product development. I think for the guy you were quoting originally technet's probably more appropriate (he's just getting started.) For someone developing products or running a lab in the business MSDN is absolutely the better choice. You're right. I misread his "I can get my business to subsidize training" and was thinking he could get them to pay for at-work licenses that he could also use at home. Completely missed that he was working helpdesk where it can be nearly impossible to get your employer to invest in you.
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Jun 24, 2013 00:43
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QuiteEasilyDone posted:Okay so I'm looking to setup a basic home lab Not to necro from a couple weeks ago, but if you're still reading I just noticed a "Build your own Virtual Lab" intro webinar here. Don't know the speaker myself, but the group has usually put on decent speakers in the past and the synopsis notes using only free tools and your existing home computer. There will probably be a database-oriented slant to it as well.
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Jul 9, 2013 19:24
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QPZIL posted:Took 640-822 (CCENT) last week and passed with a 93%. Took 70-410 (Instl. & Cfg. Windows Server 2012) today and passed with a 94%. One left for CCNA and two left for MCSA. It's not out of 1000, it's out of ~unspecified mystery number~ and then the passing score is scaled to 700. Hopefully, it's extra wiggle room to adjust tests that have extra heavy memorization content but who knows. Stanos posted:I just took a cert for my degree program (CIW Web Foundations, nothing big) and uh, is the security for these tests supposed to be lax? I was under the impression they'd take my phone and when I said I hadn't gotten rid of my phone to my proctor he gave me a stupid look and said I could put it on the shelf if it worried me. Closed off room shared with 2 other people taking tests at the same time. Proctor just closed the cubicle door and wandered around the building apparently. Prometric doesn't implement anything, they just partner with local test centers, check out their facility and give them the app. It's entirely possible for the test center to just take a dump on Prometric's rules as soon as they leave the building, and you may expect to see them removed from the list of test centers in a while if it keeps up and people are honest on the post-test survey. The fac I went to had lockers for my stuff, reminded me about my phone, actually compared my ID signatures, cameras above every cubicle and a big glass wall facing the receptionist. They also had a huge gallery of "look at all these certs we offer here" from Oracle, CompTIA, etc so they definitely went all-out.
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Jul 19, 2013 19:59
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You may also like the videos at http://aka.ms/mcsa90. The video editing is pretty lackluster but the examples are far more concrete than the topic listings on the exam details.
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Jul 31, 2013 16:14
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MJP posted:Why not reschedule the exam? I forget what Prometric's policies are but I think it's free to reschedule up until a certain date very close to the exam. my registration confirmation email from last week posted:What if I need to cancel or reschedule my exam?
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Aug 6, 2013 16:01
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MrBigglesworth posted:OK, here are the 3 questions, in ...uh...question. 1. How many bits do the subnets have in common. 51. The 8 provided subnets are all defined over the next 3 bits after that, though that's not part of the question. 2. Your global prefix is 52 bits and you've carved out 4 /55 subnets already; how many /55s are left. 3. You have a /51. You want to assign 4 /53s from it. The first one will have 00 for bits 52 amd 53, the second will have 01, the third will have 10, the fourth will have ____ (what bit value is left). Now put the fourth subnets bits together with the prefix to form a complete address.
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Aug 7, 2013 14:45
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Speaking of questionable questions. On my 70-464 this week there were quite a few questions based on choosing which feature/tool would address a problem with the least development effort. I can appreciate ensuring you know the relative complexity of various options, but that made for some very muddy answers.
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Aug 10, 2013 19:47
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IT Guy posted:How do you find the Microsoft books? Or can you access them without a course? I think they've been moving away from (official) books period and exam-centric ones especially. There's always a lag time from major release to exam availability to exam book availability, so it's not surprising to see a 2013 book not available yet. I'm not well versed on Exchange, but over in SQL land there's almost 10 months just between exam release and class availability for the 2012 MCSE stuff and the MCSM isn't even available yet. You may suddenly run into a brick wall if you're relying on classical book/classroom training, and if MS holds to their ~2 year release cycle plan then those resources just won't keep up. I've been "prepping" for my own primarily via twitter feeds of notable voices and articles/white papers on the exam topics but I don't know how viable that is for Exchange.
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Aug 14, 2013 17:40
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wrl posted:As a full-time SysAdmin regularly working on Server 03/08 I'm planning on filling in the gaps to complete my MCSA for Server 2012 having no previous MCSA. I have the resources to get all the hands on experience I need through work, so I was hoping to just buy the right book(s) and read the right site(s). Going towards the 410 as someone who hasn't done any real studying in a number of years, what did those in a similar spot find successful for them? If you're really that familiar as a sysadmin, just read the exam topics and make sure you're familiar with all the details listed and especially powershell and the new tools/features (the 90days2mcsa videos can be nice if you've never taken an MS exam before). For self-study, figuring out how to lab with Storage Spaces can be a bit of a challenge just because of the number of parts you have to carve out, and the same for doing hyper-v migrations. An Azure trial could be immensely helpful here (unless your corp proxy manager says "we don't need to open Azure firewall rules; just connect to the open guest wifi across the street  ").
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Aug 16, 2013 00:08
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Woo. 70-465 down with a 906. Do I dare shoot for the 88-986 now?Barnsey posted:Also any technical PMs out there who think technical certs are worth it? Speaking from the opposite end of it: I love a PM who is technical enough to follow along but ask clarifying questions when I get too detailed/miss the bigger picture, but it's horrible working with a PM who thinks he knows your technical stuff and tries to contradict/override you constantly. What do you want to achieve with the technical certs? More employability? Camaraderie with you devs?
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Aug 30, 2013 03:29
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Fyi, MS turned SecondShot back on earlier this morning. If you're at all considering getting an MS cert, grab a free voucher now. You don't pay until you pick the exam/pack and book an appointment and they're good through next May.
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Aug 30, 2013 23:56
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keseph posted:Woo. 70-465 down with a 906. Do I dare shoot for the 88-986 now? Welp! So much for that idea. http://sirsql.net/blog/2013/8/30/so-long-mcm
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Aug 31, 2013 21:34
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So I've heard an unofficial word from a source I trust that all the MCM and MCSM prereqs and wait periods are being waived to facilitate people polishing them off before they cut off entirely Oct 1. They're all scheduled over direct emails anyway so I don't expect to ever see an official announcememt on it. How batshit crazy am I for contemplating going for it? I'm second-guessing myself so drat hard here.
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Sep 5, 2013 01:12
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Dilbert As gently caress posted:HOLY loving poo poo ARE YOU GUYS SERIOUS? Given that it's a CC and there are a substantial number of students in those classes that have no idea what virtualization even means, that type of teacher seems pretty appropriate. No point wasting a truly knowledgeable prof on people who don't have the background to get it. The real sin is mandatory classroom time on a cert that's supposed to cover OTJ experience. The really advanced people who know and can teach about edge cases, feature interactions/limitations, and in-depth performance design aren't going to be leashed to a CC. They're probably going to be teaching on their own, online, and irregularly partnered with major universities or tech consulting firms.
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Sep 14, 2013 20:24
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Dilbert As gently caress posted:IT Training
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Sep 15, 2013 03:57
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Dilbert As gently caress posted:And no it shouldn't be that way, (1)you should pay for education and (2)get some quality education. If I become some, by weird twist of impossible fate, VCDX by some construed thing, (3)I will still teach at a CC. Just like one of the teachers who will probably sit his vcdx at PEX inspired me to do as well. 1. I disagree. Almost all of the most fruitful learning I've done since I graduated college was free (to me; mostly sponsored by ISVs and 3PVs shilling their products). Now, I'm not a VMWare admin, so maybe it's different for your particular product, but most of us in IT necessarily have enough general competency with computers to find lots of free online whitepapers, technical blogs, etc to learn with more agility than a college classroom can provide. 2. Just because it isn't quality for you doesn't mean it isn't quality for the rest of the class. He's the right teacher for a student that's brand new to the content, but you're the wrong student and shouldn't be forced to pay 2 grand and 50+ hours to sit through it to tick off a checkbox. 3. If that's true then why aren't you applying to teach that class right now, when it's within your day-to-day and students might hit you with interesting or novel-to-you questions, before you're severely overqualified and want to charge 5x what the CC wants to pay their instructor?
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Sep 15, 2013 04:57
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I look forward to seeing you teach literally everyone who wants to learn about VCAP, all at the same time, give all of them a quality course in the process, and not be paid a pittance for doing so. If you can accomplish that, then I commend you because you are a shining star of enthusiasm which is unfortunately not common amongst those who teach, because what you have described makes you a college unto yourself. I truly would encourage you to apply to teach that class if you think you can do so better because it is extremely common that that guy is the best the CC can find who'll work for the money on offer. Don't just sit on your high pony and bandy on about how teachers should be better; go do something about it and right now rather than in a few years maybe possibly if you get to a really high level that you might not ever get to.
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Sep 15, 2013 05:59
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Daylen Drazzi posted:There's some talk from the various team managers that our new contract could include requirements for MCSA/MCSE certifications and an accompanying boost in pay. I'm just a lowly server farm technician, even though my title is Systems Administrator, but I really want to knock out my MCSA. Which certification makes more sense - MCSA 2008 or MCSA 2012? About half of the 2008 exams have already retired, back in July and the other half retire at the end of January, and the 2008-equivalent of the MCSE is already retired. The MCSA is only good for 3 years, so you'll need to upgrade it to 2012 material by then or if/when you decide to take the next step up. If you're in a position where you'd really like to play with the new stuff and make a case for rolling it out for prod, then going straight to the 2012 material could help your case, but that's an up-hill battle and a lot of responsibility so it's certainly not for everyone. vvv: incoherent posted:2012 R2 launches next month so they'll seed those questions about 6-8 months after you begin the path. If it takes him 6-8 months from today, he won't complete the 2008 stuff before it retires, so he'd have to start over completely. keseph fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Sep 15, 2013 |
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Sep 15, 2013 22:24
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Amphion posted:Where are you seeing that MCSA Server 08 is going to be retired? I'm looking on the MS cert site and don't see anything. MCITP:EA retired, but that's it. http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/mcts-certification.aspx posted:The MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuration; MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuration; and MCTS: Windows Server 2008 Applications Infrastructure, Configuration certifications will be retired on January 31, 2014. Amphion posted:Also where do you see this? I believe MCSA is good for life and does not need to be renewed. Whoops! You're right; I had assumed they were all affected by the 3-year re-cert.
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Sep 16, 2013 00:44
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IT Guy posted:What is the easiest way to get Microsoft ceritifications without taking a course? I want to get a few to increase my chances of finding a better job but my currently employer won't send me on a course unless it is benefitting them (understandable) and I'd feel pretty scummy anyway by getting them to pay for a bunch of courses and then loving off. However, I really don't want to drop thousands of my own money taking courses. Is there a cheap way to learn online and take the exams? Assuming you're in a big corporate shop: Continuing education/training funds are there to be used. If you don't use your budget one year, then your boss's boss is going to ask why they're setting aside funds there instead of elsewhere and potentially reduce his budget for it next year. OTOH, if it's a flat mandate by HR instead of part of his negotiated budget then he won't care because it's not part of his budget. It can be a lot different in a small shop if your boss is also the CFO. As for online content, there's tons out there. BOL should be your best friend. StackOverflow is great too, but be careful of blindly trusting things people write and double-check that it still works that way. And now for a personal anecdote: If you're taking an exam and think a question is truly fundamentally flawed? Challenge it. Do the follow-up. If you're wrong, you may be told exactly why and know where to study further. If you're right, you might get a free exam voucher  Use the Comment/Survey time too. No test is perfect but you might make it better for the next person who takes it.Edit: fixed phone smiley
keseph fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Sep 16, 2013 |
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Sep 16, 2013 20:06
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:Certifications should be some sort of measurable knowledge beyond "being able to nod your head and look comfortable as smarter people talk." I WISH this were a job requirement. It would improve the workforce greatly.
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Sep 21, 2013 01:58
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So, I've got an upcoming lab which is remote-monitored, and one of the requirements is a webcam that views your entire desk working area (to prevent taking notes on questions, etc away with you). Their client of choice is not compatible with any of our teleconferencing equipment at work, so I need to buy my own consumer-grade one to set up at home. My last experience with webcams was circa 2001 and holy poo poo were they giant piles of garbage back then. Any suggestions for a good, relatively cheap one with minimal software BS?
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Sep 27, 2013 04:59
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Crunchtime posted:I'm in this same boat with WGU. The one they sent me is garbage, so I bought: http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Webcam-Portable-Calling-Autofocus/dp/B004WO8HQ4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1380285763&sr=8-3&keywords=webcam -- It is a decent camera in which you don't even have to install the software package. Thanks! There're some local stores that have one too, so it looks like I know what I'll be doing tonight. Now comes the question of whether my ethics are strong enough to prevent me abusing their returns policy...
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Sep 27, 2013 16:36
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MJP posted:There's some useful info in the videos. I'd recommend watching them and go through the labs simultaneously, if for no other reason than to cover two of the major learning styles at the same time. Just so long as you have a good prep book for the exam itself, that is. MS also has some "entry-ready" certs called MTA that sound vaguely comparable to A+/N+ but for software support/dev. However, I don't think you give enough credence to someone being capable of diligently sitting down with a foreign tech and a book and learning about it. You're right that a productive worker needs to know how to apply the theory and that only comes from experience, but there are TON of IT workers who can't be assed to sit down and learn new tech diligently. They tend to occupy senior positions (because they're not interested in changing and build up years of veterancy) and need to be counterbalanced by less experienced but more learning-focused workers so you have a well-rounded group.
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Jan 24, 2014 15:36
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The Collector posted:is there any point in getting the Microsoft database certifications? Seems that the oracle carts are more in demand As dev, BI, or DBA? It wouldn't hurt as a dev but I doubt it's much more than a small bonus unless you're aiming to be the TSQL specialist for a group. BI, similarly, you're probably expected to be fairly cross-platform so any data certs or experience are fairly interchangeable unless you're trying to be a real specialist. DBA-wise, A LOT of MSSQL DBAs end up there by accident rather than design, so specific experience is going to be weighted more heavily by a lot of employers, and certs are correspondingly less mandatory. I've seen a lot of employers say you must be capable of getting cert X in 3/6/9 months of hire, so at least look into the material enough to know roughly where you stand if they ask. Comparable Oracle environments can easily cost 10x as much in licensing, so a prospective employer is putting a lot more CapEx in your hands to break, and wants the neutral verifier that much more badly. I keep hearing from people I trust that DBA unemployment rates are well below even frictional unemployment, so the jobs are there for the taking, whether you have a cert for it or not.
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Apr 7, 2014 01:40
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open container posted:I'm trying to decide between an MCSA in Windows Server vs SQL Server. It seems there's a lot of overlap in the jobs I've looked at, and I've also read that sys admin is a good path to become a DBA, which means it would make more sense to do Windows Server to qualify me to be a sys admin, even though I think ultimately I'd prefer to be a DBA. So I'm really not sure which path to take. At the moment I'm trying to switch careers into IT, I currently have A+ and I'm hunting for a tech support job to get started. I have some experience with SQL and it definitely clicked with me in a way that programming never did. Can anyone advise me? What do you mean by "experience with SQL?" The SQL MCSA is equal parts dev, admin, and SSIS with a fair bit of syntax memorization. Outside of the day-to-day stuff, you need to be familiar with academic things like how Sequences work (not to a huge depth but they're pretty rare in the wild) and be pretty comfortable with SSIS and broadly how data warehousing and ETL work. I've heard of many people who are otherwise quite bright who can't get past the 463 because they hate SSIS and/or don't want to invest the time to learn DW fundamentals. Edit: if you're really looking to be a DBA, you definitely need some sysadmin experience under your belt if you want to be adept. DB servers, at the OS level, require special care and feeding way outside of what sysadmins are typically asked to support, so you need to know enough to ask them for the right things and make sure you're getting them. keseph fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Apr 30, 2014 |
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Apr 30, 2014 16:04
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open container posted:Thanks so much for your input. My SQL "experience" is one college course where I learned the basics of designing relational databases and writing queries. Well, it isn't to say that you shouldn't pursue it if it's interesting to you. I took a very similar class in college about 6 months prior to my first DBA gig and it's turned out fantastically for me! But I was also working 20-30 hrs/wk as a linux sysadmin during college, so I had the background installing from bare metal all the way up to a fully functional network. A DBA isn't also a sysadmin -- I sure make a lot of stupid mistakes every time I rebuild the domain on my VM lab -- but when you start working with anything advanced, your DB server's dependencies stretch deep into the OS and you have to speak competently with the OS guys about, say, making sure your Cluster disks failover successfully within 10 seconds or that your network backup storage requirements are going to steamroll that 1gig NIC they put in the system spec. If it really interests you, then absolutely go for it, because it is depressing how many disinterested DBAs are out there who can't be assed to keep learning the new stuff (and there is a lot of new stuff). Just be amenable to learning, at a shallow level, a lot of the sysadmin and dev stuff along the way.
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May 1, 2014 02:39
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