Category Archives: change management

Q+A: Upgrading the Company DBMS

Posted on November 16, 2023 by craig@craigsmullins.com

I regularly receive questions from readers and every now and then I choose one to highlight here on the blog. Today, I want to share a Q+A from a reader/student asking for guidance on things a company should consider when … Continue reading →

Posted in architecture, availability, change management, maintenance, relational, scalability | Leave a comment

Keeping Up With the DBMS

Posted on January 12, 2016 by craig@craigsmullins.com

  One of the more troubling trends for DBAs is keeping up with the latest version of their DBMSs. Change is a fact of life and each of the major DBMS products change quite rapidly. A typical release cycle for … Continue reading →

Posted in change management, DBMS, fixpacks, maintenance | 1 Comment

On DBA Tools, Utilities, Suites and Solutions

Posted on April 27, 2015 by craig@craigsmullins.com

“Vendor speak” can be a difficult thing to decipher. And that is particularly true within the realm of DBA tools vendors. It would be easier if every vendor followed the same terminology… but, of course, they do not. And there is … Continue reading →

Posted in backup & recovery, change management, data modeling, performance, tools | 1 Comment

The Change Management Perspective of the DBA

Posted on January 31, 2014 by craig@craigsmullins.com

The DBA is the custodian of database changes. Usually, the DBA is not the one to request a change; that is typically done by the application owner or business user.  But there are times, too, when the DBA will request … Continue reading →

Posted in change management, DBA | 4 Comments

DBA: Development Versus Production

Posted on October 15, 2013 by craig@craigsmullins.com

There are many different ways to look at database administration. It can be done by task, by discipline, by DBMS, by server, and so on. But one useful way to look at DBA is in terms of the type of … Continue reading →

Posted in availability, backup & recovery, change management, database design, DBA, SQL | 3 Comments

Managing Database Change

Posted on February 18, 2013 by craig@craigsmullins.com

Businesses must be able to meet customer expectations that are constantly changing, while at the same time growing revenue and increasing profitability. To attain these goals, businesses need to be able to change and enhance products and services to meet … Continue reading →

Posted in change management, DBA, tools | 2 Comments

Thoughts on Data Quality

Posted on November 27, 2012 by craig@craigsmullins.com

Data quality is an elusive goal. The more we try to keep accurate records in database systems, the more it seems that at least some of that data is just plain wrong. Why is this so? Speed to market issues … Continue reading →

Posted in change management, data, data modeling, Data Quality, tools | 4 Comments

Diminishing Downtime

Posted on July 16, 2012 by craig@craigsmullins.com

One of the on-going goals of database administration is to minimize downtime and improve availability. If the DBMS is down, data cannot be accessed. If the data is not available, applications cannot run. And if your applications cannot run, your … Continue reading →

Posted in availability, change management, data integrity, DBA | 2 Comments

Dealing With DBMS Complexity

Posted on February 27, 2012 by craig@craigsmullins.com

The Database Management Systems we use are becoming more complex – there can be no denying this basic fact of life. Whether you are using DB2 or SQL Server or Oracle or another popular DBMS, each and every new version … Continue reading →

Posted in change management, DBA | 2 Comments

How Many DBAs?

Posted on February 21, 2011 by craig@craigsmullins.com

One of the more troubling issues – at least when it comes to staffing up a DBA group – is how to determine the optimal number of DBAs required to keep an organization’s databases online and operating efficiently. Many organizations … Continue reading →

Posted in change management, DBA, performance, SLA, tools | 4 Comments