Overcoming Challenges of In-House Database Administration with Oracle Remote DBA

Organizations all over the world are on the lookout for ways to remain competitive. Among many other things, this also means that IT departments need to be more efficient and find ways of doing more even with budgets that are under increasing pressure. Database administration is critical to the survival and health of a business. It also demands a very high level of skill and dedication as it’s extremely technical and vulnerable.

While practically speaking a DBA on the company rolls is great for users to interact with or have physical access to the hardware and software, organizations also need to overcome serious challenges if they are to attract and retain skilled DBA talent. Some of the main issues:

Skill Set Management                                                 

The general perception of DBAs and their skills by the top management is that it is somewhat akin to a commodity. You just need to acquire a database administrator and he will be able to handle all that can be thrown at him. Unfortunately, this is not the truth that may have been anticipated. It needs to be appreciated that DBAs are fundamentally people and just like any role their competence and level of skills are bound to be different. Not only that but also a whole lot of attitudinal and behavioral attributes like approach to performance, security, issue resolution, support as well as a sense of ownership and personality come into play. End of the day, you just cannot expect two Oracle database administrators to be alike.

Increasing Skill Complexity

With the explosion of new products that Oracle has been unleashing, it is also quite evident that no one person could be conversant and competent in the handling of the entire product range. This is quite different from the scenario just a couple of decades back when if a DBA was familiar with the database and a few other things like backup, recovery, tuning, besides eBusiness Suite and a few other technologies, he was a master of Oracle. However, those days are now long gone, and now things have become so complex that Oracle DBAs are now specializing in product families or groups. What this means for businesses is that they now need to recruit and retain a number of database administrators with the different skills required in-house. Searching for a single person who has all the required skills could be an exercise in futility and end up narrowing your potential hires to just a few. Moreover, such expert database administrators will be quite senior and the acquisition cost will be astronomical.

In-House Talent Retention Issues

However, if you do dig deep and unearth an Oracle remote DBA with all the competencies you require, he will take time to sort things out but thereafter will look for further challenges to keep him going. This means that you will need to give him the leeway and the budget for some really fancy Oracle technology training or the chance to implement a really complex management tool. This will obviously entail hardware and software costs that now need to be funded additionally. This kind of experimentation can be quite risky and even after investing substantially you may have nothing to show for it. You also need to figure out what to do when yoursuper-expensive DBA getssick, goes on a vacation or looks like burning out. It is pretty much obvious that a second senior DBA is out of the question, and a junior administrator will not be able to handle the system complexities.

The Solution

If the above scenario is close to the truth then you seriously need to think about contracting the services of a professional Oracle remote DBA service provider for delivering vacation coverage. This is an arrangement by which senior Oracle DBAs who are conversant with different Oracle products will step in whenever you need to fill a gap in your own resources. You could also think about hiring a middle-level DBA instead of splurging on the best DBA you can lay your hands on, and get a remote database administration agency to ensure that your database is always up to speed and come to the rescue when disaster strikes to get your business up and running seamlessly.

Conclusion

Business database continuity with optimal levels of service, security and uptime are delivered best with your in-house team being complemented by remote database administration. With this arrangement, you can have the comfort of having a captive resource within the organization and the assurance of high-end expertise whenever the need arises. You essentially ensure that your business stays competitive without any of the hassles of recruiting and retaining star DBA talent.