This is an excerpt from various comments and arguments between IT colleagues as they have been discussed over the years in terms of DBA's and Developers. Needles to say, both jobs are equally important for the industry.

1. THERE IS NO ACCIDENTAL
DBA
Taken from my personal Blog at Blogger®
An excerpt from comments and arguments between IT colleagues
and summarized by Wally M. Pons.

2. About the author and original
text
 About the author:
 Wally M. Pons, IT professional with over 20 years
of experience in software programming,
databases and solutions provider, you may
contact me in different ways:
 Twitter: @wallypons
 Email: wpons@datagrupo.com
 About the original text:
 The original and unmodified text of this
presentation can be found here:
 http://noaccidentaldba.blogspot.com/2015/03/accidental-dba.html

3. Where does the subject comes
from?
 Some time ago I read a book about the "Accidental DBA" and
it seemed all very clear to me that perception plays an
important role in regards of what we do and how others see it
or classify it.
 I will write about a very important piece of my career as an IT
professional which is being a DBA and all the consequences
and benefits awarded by this title, which in my humble
opinion may be part of an overreaction to situations and
occurrences derived from the point of view of software
developers who misunderstand the bond between both
careers.

4. What does a DBA do?
 What does a DBA do? What are his/her duties (please note
that I'm not being a sexist here, I consider men and women in
IT equally capable). In two simple terms, a DBA is responsible
for the heart of the company (DATA) itself, second, without a
DBA all developers wouldn't have the required support and
care for all the needed tests before putting data into
production environments.
 Now that we have an idea of what a DBA is or does, let's go
back and refer to the part of "Accidental DBA", which if you
ask me about it, I will respond that "There are no accidents"
(yes, if you have kids you’ve heard this from a movie too).

5. No accidents?
 If there are no accidents, then what is it? It's simple logic:
Being a DBA is your path of destiny, your true meaning and
purpose, if you're in the IT world you know that we are pretty
much like doctors, we do multiple things because we are
demanded to do so from the environment and IT doesn't stop,
it evolves around everything and everyone.
 If you're still confused about my statement then don't worry,
think clear, cause worrying never solved a problem, but
thinking and proper planning did.

6. Firing the Developers?
 Let me expose why you would fire your developers and the
consequences, I will explain the same for the DBA:
 Firing the Developers
 When systems have already been developed, tested and functional,
you may get rid of your developers.
 Do you need to change something on a system? Well, if you own the
code (which I hope you do) you may hire an outsourcing company
which does that and you're good to go!
 Most people want (desire) to be developers, therefore they are easier
to find and hire.

7. Firing the DBA?
 Firing the DBA may carry the following consequences:
 Firing the DBA
 Once you have all your log shipping, replication, HA/DR and
backup plans in place, you may feel free to fire your DBA! Let's
just hope your hard drives don't fail or your server-to-server
synchronization never fails either.
 You may have a developer replace your DBA, but a developer
doesn't necessarily care about TempDB growth and maintenance
plans, let's be honest, his/her job is to make web/win forms look
and work great, right?
 Time is money, and losing a server that was full of data and now
all that remains are empty or no backups, that is no financial joke
at all and it's very time consuming as well.

8. Closing Line
 I can tell you that there is no accidental DBA, (although there
is a very good book about it and it's very well explained in
details and experience by the author) my point here is that
everything has a reason and a purpose in life, if you became a
DBA then you must feel proud to be part of an elite group of
people who take care of the most important thing in any
company: Data.
 One last word: Before you go mad at me, remember that I am
a developer too, and I know that regardless of professionalism
and etiquettes, there is always some jealousy, but please, for
the good of everyone, work on leaving that on the side, thank
you!