Dima wrote: > you must understand that if you will become a DBA you will not be > a sysadmin anymore. These two specialties are different enough.
NOT TRUE! First, we have to distinguish between one's job title (and by extension, primary duties) and one's skills . . . Your job title might limit you to performing duties of a particular specialization: database admin, system admin, network admin. Or your duties may cross several domains -- think of the lone sysadmin in a small shop, whose duties could easily include some or all or systems, network, and database administration. As for your skills . . . Once you are "qualified" to perform a certain set of duties (sysadmin, netadmin, dbadmin), you retain those skills forever. Whether you keep current on those skills by necessity (because you use them every day), or keep them current by study (because you don't want to lose them), or let them deteriorate is up to you. So, will becoming a DBA make you "not a sysadmin?" NO! Will taking a job as a DBA mean that you will no longer perform sysadmin tasks? Maybe. Second, I will offer an existence proof: I started my career as a programmer; later I became a sysadmin; after that I became an architect. How do I earn my money today? As a programmer. Does that mean I'm no longer a sysadmin? No longer an architect? Hardly. Are programming (and here I mean "software engineering," not casual coding), system administration, and system/network architecture different specializations? You bet! Can I do all three of them? Yes. Am I a programmer and a sysadmin and an architect? Yes. AdamM --- Send mail for the `bblisa' mailing list to [EMAIL PROTECTED]'. Mail administrative requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]'.
