Kevan Riley, another of the finalists in the Exceptional DBA Awards, began his technology career 15 years ago, but it wasn’t until 1999 that he discovered SQL Server 7.

Since then, he’s used all versions up to 2008 to deliver any number of data platforms. The majority of his work has been in the world of travel agencies and their ever demanding 24 hour, 7 days a week websites, pushing the scalability of SQL.

Kevan says that working for a travel agency is an interesting industry for a DBA to be in, there is no tangible product, it is purely data, and having a good DBA at the heart of a travel company is the key to success.

In 2007, Kevan moved to his current role at Destinology, a luxury tour operator in the UK and his primary remit here has been to redevelop the entire back-office system.

He can be found most days contributing at AskSQLServerCentral.com. The SQL Server community which he says helped him to get where he is today. Other users of the site are grateful for his patient and meticulous work in moderating the site.

RM:

Okay Kevan, the basics first. What made you decide to become a DBA?

KR:

I started in IT in 1995 – straight out of university and into a trainee programmer role working on IBM COBOL development on mainframe technology for a very large retailer. It was here that I started working on OLAP type projects and I quickly realised the power of tapping into vast amounts of business data to produce reports that showed which way the business was going.  At the time, all of our data was being harvested from multiple mainframe sources, pre-processed by a lot of proprietary scripts and arcane programming languages into Informix databases.  It became very clear that the best way of ensuring the end result was a smooth trouble free reporting system was to insist that the data going in was free from error – so I got involved in writing SQL scripts – and that was my first real database experience.  It also taught me the value of data, and I tend to see everything now as data – it’s a bit weird to explain – but when I’ve worked alongside other good DBAs, it’s clear that we see processes and data in different ways to, say, application developers.  It’s not just the set-based versus procedural argument, it really is a way of visualising in your mind the entities and relationships and the flow of data – and I don’t know whether I’m just pre-programmed to think that way, or I have learned this skill, but it certainly suits to being a DBA.

After that I moved into a business intelligence consultancy role and really expanded my horizons on that one, using every database platform under the sun, and it was here I got my first taste of SQL Server – version 7!  The main reason was that with this version, an OLAP engine was now being shipped as part of the package – it was then called ‘OLAP Services’ – and brought Microsoft into the list of serious contenders for OLAP providers. I then planned to leave the high-flying world of consultancy and go back to the real world – working as a data warehouse developer – however just as I made the leap, the company went under and I was left unemployed. So then I had to make use of my most recent skills and basically get any job so that I could pay the bills. I took my first ‘real’ DBA role about 10 years ago working for a travel company that sold products to travel agents via a call centre, and the public via the web.  That was purely a SQL Server/ MS development environment, and despite one change of employer – it’s still the same ‘place’ for me – I’ve been immersed in SQL Server from version 7.

RM:

Is the accidental DBA still the most prevalent path to becoming an admin hood or do most others have it thrust upon them?

KR:

Though I don’t consider myself to be an accidental DBA – I feel more like I grew into it, I do think that the accidental route is still very prevalent.  You often hear that some development teams don’t see the need, or the value of having a full time DBA, often the more experienced developers have some SQL knowledge and therefore are able to offer some SQL development – and that’s generally fine whilst the application is in development or test, but once it goes live and runs like a dog – the finger is firmly pointed towards the database, and one of the unfortunate developers who had some input on the SQL side of things is tasked with ‘making it run faster’!  It doesn’t help that the line between dev and DBA is blurred by ORMs, LINQ, entity frameworks etc – all serve to abstract the data layer away from the application, but unless you fully understand what you are sacrificing by using them, they more than often turn a simple app into an untamed monster.  I’m not saying there should be strict demarcation between the two worlds, but life is easier when each side realises what they don’t know and leaves it to the ‘expert’ – for example you’d never find me attempting to write an .NET app, I’m a data guy, but I’ve worked in IT development long enough to know what can and can’t be achieved, I just leave the details to the people who know the details.

RM:

Are there things in your career that you would have done differently?

KR:

I don’t think there is anything I would have done differently – I’m very pragmatic and whilst I don’t necessarily believe in fate, it’s not worth worrying about other paths that may have, or should have been taken.  I’m here now with what I’ve got, the only thing I can change is my future.

RM:

What achievements are you most proud of?

KR:

My most proud achievements – it has to be getting nominated for the final of Exceptional DBA 2010 – it really is the pinnacle so far in my career, but I also feel like I’m just at the foothills – there’s a long way to climb yet.

RM:

And what aspects of your career excite you and are there any that depress you?

KR:

What excites me? When I manage to wrestle that query from hell down to a sub-second blip on the CPU.  Writing good code, the best you can, is what got me into computers in the first place, so you can never take it away.

Recently too, feeling part of the SQL community – the warmth and friendliness I have seen in places like ASK SSC, and then to receive such unsolicited support from people I have never met during the Exceptional DBA Award process was just mind-blowing.

Nothing depresses but one thing that annoys me in development is the sheer amount of time you waste on re-work, simply because the requirements were not discussed enough to start with.  There’s far too often the need to begin a project, because results need to be seen to be being delivered, whereas in the long run the whole project takes twice as long, when half way through everyone realises the project is heading in the wrong direction.  I’ve only ever met a couple of good, and I mean really good, project managers who had the conviction to push back on pressure to start delivering straight away, to give more time to getting the foundations in place.  They also turned out to be the kind of project managers who managed the project rather than the technical staff.  A saying I used in a previous role, was ‘well, if you’d have asked the right question in the first place…’

RM:

What would you say are the three characteristics of an exceptional DBA?  Why do you think these qualities are so important?

KR:

I would begin with business skills/awareness – it’s bad enough in IT that we are seen as a cost to business not a revenue generating opportunity (unless you work the IT industry, but that’s by-the-by), so you need to have the ability to work with the business – now this can be as direct as providing business intelligence – in many of my MI roles I worked directly with top-tier executives of companies to shape the reporting solutions and provide meaningful information to allow them to make decisions to better the business; or sometimes it is being flexible within your role – not all real-world processes fit the pure logical relational model and you’ll be asked to accommodate some data that isn’t quite right, or use SQL for a purpose that doesn’t quite gel – and as long as you are aware of the pitfalls and are happy to ‘manage’ the process, it can work in your favour if you allow the business to overcome short-term issues by being flexible.  You can take your principles and best-practice so far, but don’t let it take you to the unemployment queue.

The next would be technologically aware – SQL Server is now vast toolbox of products – there is no way that one person could learn in depth all about SQL Server – what is more important is knowing what can and can’t be achieved with SQL Server – I have absolutely no experience of implementing Service Broker, but I do know in what situations it should be considered, and I know where to go and find out more information, and I know people I could ask.  I also know there are potentially umpteen ways of achieving the same end result, and would have to consider the pros and cons of those too.  I am aware that I don’t know too much about Service Broker, but I’m OK with that too – it gives me a gap in my knowledge that I can focus on closing.  Also I understand the competing technologies and am ready with good answers when the CEO asks why we can’t migrate the whole data platform to MySQL.

The final one would be self-aware.  This is about pretty much being yourself, but always striving to improve yourself too. Brad McGehee talks a lot about this in his Exceptional DBA book – it’s about building your brand.  Understanding how people see you, and changing it for the better. Self-confidence, not arrogance.  Approachable, not geeky and anyway you’ll be branded a geek as you work in IT, there’s no point making it worse for yourself.

RM:

Can you tell me a little about your job and this differs with other DBA work that you know of?

KR:

My current role is that of a DBA, but in a small IT department, so wearing many hats is the norm.  As well as providing DBA services to the development team, and fulfilling the duties of a production DBA, I also have the responsibility of the IT infrastructure, network, hosted services, telecomms, data centre, external providers and procurement.  Pretty much a general IT management role.  Alongside that, with the current development project I am working on I need to fulfil the roles of business analyst, system architect, UI designer, development DBA, tester, trainer and project manager.  It’s a busy and varied life.  Not all my roles have been this varied, but it’s good to spread yourself sometimes, even if it’s just to get an appreciation of the other sides of IT.

RM:

You’re a well known contributor to AskSQLServerCentral.com. How do you find time to get everything done? And what sort of questions do you find crop up again and again?

KR:

I’m not sure how I find time myself. My work load definitely ebbs and flows, some days I don’t even get a chance to look at ASK until about 10pm, but I do like to check it every day – not necessarily to answer questions, but just to keep an eye on it, make sure no spam has appeared, check the tagging of questions.  I take my moderator status quite seriously, it was shrewd decision by the admin team to make me a moderator in the early days, otherwise I’d have just been another user just passing through, but after a little involvement and some feedback about the site in the beginning I had this power bestowed on me, and from then on I’ve felt a sort of moral obligation to continue supporting it. But I love it really.

The kind of questions I see over and over are often the simplest of T-SQL questions, and I kind of like that – I think it shows two things: one, we have reached the novice audiences and we are helping them; two, the very core of SQL Server, the T-SQL language itself, is still being learned and used, despite the dazzling array of shiny new tools added to SQL Server in every release, people are still turning to the basic, simplest way of getting the job done.

RM:

It’s said that most DBAs live chaotic lives, in that they always seem to be on call. Is it the same for you and have ever considered a change of career?

KR:

I’ve been ‘on call’ for about 10 years of the last 13 years in my career, including now, but always with differing levels of availability.  Certainly for the last 6 years, the only time I’ve not been on call is when I’m out of the country on holiday.  It’s probably hard these days, not to be on call, even if you wanted to.  I am always available on my mobile phone, and I’ve always got access to email on my mobile device.  I guess it has become a way of life.  I take pride in my work, and genuinely care about the impact it has on the business, so if something goes bang in the middle of the night, I want to be the first to hear about it, not walk into the chaos in the office at 9am the next morning.  Having said that, it doesn’t make life feel chaotic – it’s just part and parcel of the role.

I certainly wouldn’t ever consider changing career because of it, in fact thinking about it, I would probably miss the buzz. There’s nothing better than adrenaline and caffeine keeping you going at 3am as you try to fix a server.

RM:

Is there any moment or event either in IT or computer science would you like to have been at and why?

KR:

I’m not sure whether this would count, but I would have loved to have seen the Bletchley Park bombes, the Enigma code breaking machines, in full flow.