Rob Farley on this month’s T-SQL Tuesday topic:
Does Automatic Tuning in Azure mean the end of query tuners? Does Self-Service BI in Excel and Power BI mean the end of BI practitioners? Does PaaS mean the end of DBAs?
I think yes. And no.
Yes, because there are tasks that will disappear. For people that only do one very narrow thing, they probably have reason to fear. But they’ve had reason to fear for a lot longer than Azure has been around. If all you do is check that backups have worked, you should have expected to be replaced by a script a very long time ago. The same has applied in many industries, from production lines in factories to ploughing lines in fields. If your contribution is narrow, you are at risk.
But no, because the opportunity here is to use the tools to become a different kind of expert. The person who drove animals to plough fields learned to drive tractors, but could use their skills in ploughing to offer a better service. The person who painted cars in a factory makes an excellent candidate for retouching dent repair, or custom paint jobs. Their expertise sets them apart from those whose careers didn’t have the same background.
Read the whole thing. Rob is characteristically thoughtful.