Can Remote DBA Responsibilities Be Outsourced?

Are you nervous about the security of your database? The remote DBA services are meant to take care of such issues. The present scenario is such that everyone is expecting to do more with less efforts and resources. But there are certain tasks that require specialized personnel. Database administration is one such job where you will require experts to deal with the issues. The databases might vary from Microsoft’s SQL to Oracle’s MySQL or it might be any other kind of open source databases. Regardless of which one a company chooses, the need for DBAs are inevitable. While hiring these professionals it is required that one should hire a good database administrator to ensure that their databases are secure and running properly. In order to cut down the costs more and more organizations are opting for remote DBA services than directly hiring internal DBAs.

Besides the budget factor there are other reasons as well why companies are opting for remote database administration services. Let’s take a look at some of these:

Employment Crisis

There are certain limitations while recruiting a DBA. For instance, it is necessary that these personnel should have command over both oral and written skills besides their technical knowledge. Their responsibilities include the designing and implementation of the applications. As a result it is required that they must have knowledge about all kinds of business administrations and should be able to coordinate without any hesitation with the rest of the professionals including accountants, business managers and manufacturing managers. There are database administrators who have earned Master’s degrees from well known universities.

Secondly, the scope of working as a DBA is huge. For instance, Oracle has developed one of the most complex systems in the world. Therefore, it takes several years of training to learn the various aspects and complexities associated with the Oracle databases. There are specialty areas into which the databases from Oracle have segmented themselves. Thus, they target various kinds of markets like performance tuning, warehousing and applications support. In this regard it is difficult to find an Oracle DBA who is competent in dealing with such varied facets. This is the reason why companies throughout the globe are looking for external support. Such services are easily available nowadays in the form of remote dba support – remotedba.com.

In addition to these there are many organizations that are still unable to hire full time DBA talent to make sure that the databases are running smoothly. Since these databases are quite costly, organizations do not deem it safe to trust beginners with maintaining and updating such systems.

Encouraging the growth of own DBA

There are some companies that are undertaking the task of training their own DBAs. The limitation in this system is that most of the companies lose the trained ones as they leave once they get better opportunities. This happens because there is often a discrepancy related to their responsibilities and compensations. The compensation for an Oracle DBA is equivalent to the salary of a company’s vice president. It is not always possible to hire such internal professionals when the question of budget arises.

These are the primary reasons why the companies are gradually moving away from recruiting full time DBA personnel. They are favoring the remote Oracle support instead. These are cheaper solutions which can be put to use to leverage a shared pool of talent. The cost of maintaining the remote DBAs are almost half of what the full timers demand. There are several companies located across the globe who are offering such services.

Here’s a look at why organizations are opting for such services:

Expert Support: Who does not want experts for their systems? If you have Oracle databases you can hire expert services easily. By hiring experienced professionals it becomes convenient for the company to save the downtime that is associated with the human errors.

Less expensive: The USP of remote DBA services is that the companies can buy services that they require. This is especially true for the Oracle databases. There are various segments in which these are divided. Hence, the organizations can easily choose from specific areas for which they need DBA support.

Removes institutional knowledge: The chances of trained and experienced professionals leaving the organizations are completely removed. Along with this the risk of losing confidential information is also mitigated. Besides, there is also no need for the companies to wait before the new DBAs become used to working with their databases.

Using remote monitoring technology: The remote support will be able to monitor the databases consistently. There are sophisticated proprietary scripts that are used by these companies that help in reporting, capacity planning, etc. There are several conditions that can lead to database crashes or initiate the process of causing such damage. The remote monitoring software can address these problems as well.

Easily available: Those who are looking for Oracle database administrations will easily find one. While the high attrition rate of the full timers is a huge problem, it is equally easy to find remote support for Oracle databases.

Security is assured: As the companies hire remote DBA support it becomes easy for them to be completely assured that their databases are in safe hands. Thus, it allows the managers to focus more upon other issues that require immediate attention.

A gradual shift to the 21^st century displays that there has been a major shift in the way database administrative systems have been working. The companies are increasingly going for remote database administration support rather than hiring full time professionals. Although it might be termed a trend that is more popular with small companies but the same trend is being adopted by other companies as well. Shortage of qualified DBAs and high attrition rates are two major reasons behind this trend. As long as such a condition exists, the scope for outsourcing DBAs will continue. It is, thus, expected that in the near future more companies will offer such outsourcing services related to the database administrators.