Seven Habits of Highly Effective DBAs

Seven Habits of Highly Effective DBAs: "2. Understand the business and user expectations. One would think this is a no-brainer, yet gaining knowledge and keeping abreast of the business often slips to the bottom of many DBAs' lists, who then flounder as they face unanticipated database use and growth patterns. Get beyond a superficial level of understanding to map database transaction and workload patterns to different user activities. Such knowledge helps in two ways. For new systems, it allows you to model systems infrastructure to ensure capacity is available to accommodate regular use as well as spikes. For existing systems, it helps you build a baseline of what the database is supposed to look like when it is working 'normally' and identify any deviations. Accordingly, you can configure alert thresholds to avoid false alerts, as well as begin proactive diagnosis and action to prevent long-term performance disruptions."