DEVOPSdigest

One overlooked opportunity for improving DEV and OPS collaboration is inviting database administrators (DBAs) to the DevOps conversation.

DBAs function in a unique role where bridging the gap between development and operations occurs daily; numerous DBA pros operate with a foot firmly set in each realm. While there exist DBAs that focus mainly on application development — App DBAs, and Ops DBA, DBAs that center on operations — many DBAs have learned both competencies and those resources are the people CIOs and DevOps leaders must integrate into DevOps teams.

DBAs feel the pain when development and operational mistakes are made; therefore, DBAs tend to lean toward "motivating" development and operational teams to think beyond just their ecosystem. A developer may create awesome code, and the code may even run expediently, but without the developer understanding the impact to the larger supporting operational environment. An operations team member, maybe a system admin for example, might build and configure robust server environments that would meet the hosting requirements for everything, but a database. A DBA can explain and show the impact of each decision.

DBAs provide expertise beyond the database, as many DBAs can tune host operating systems better than system admins that have not specialized in database host configuration. DBAs think capacity, performance, and recoverability at highly proficient levels and can incrementally blend database changes into the release pipeline.

Therefore, by shifting DBAs left, or right, or up, or down, or wherever needed, organizations should begin seeing positive impact in a few months, after allowing time for DBA recommendations to progress through the operational and product development pipelines.

Having these new DevOps team members that speak the language of development and the language of operations allows for purer strategic communications and clearer product requirements understanding, resulting in better business product outcomes.

Master DevOps collaboration with DBA inclusion!!!