A career in databases offers a great way to be involved in Information Technology (IT) partly because databases are ubiquitous. It is also an ideal career because there are thousands of potential career paths within the industry. The range of options can keep the job interesting and varied. All of these options allow for various degrees of specialization and continued learning.
Regardless of which specific career path you follow, there are a number of tips that will be consistent for anybody wanting to break into databases as a career.
Education and Certification
Formal education is important. Not because it teaches the full range of skills that will be needed - it does not. Nor is it because it is the quickest way to learn - it isn't. Formal education is important because many places will not consider individuals for entry-level jobs without a degree - especially during an economic downturn. A degree indicates that you know how to learn - even if you don't yet know exactly what is needed for the job.
At the same time, it is even easier to get into a database career with a related degree. A good example would be a Business degree with a focus in Information Systems. That degree often requires one or two database courses for graduation and usually has more courses available. Even if your degree program is outside this, it may be possible to enroll in the database courses anyways.
With or without the formal education, there is another way to effectively demonstrate mastery of the basic skills. That would be certification. Oracle and Microsoft are the leading certification providers, but there are others including IBM and Teradata. Certification generally involves passing one or more computer-based examinations about different aspects of creating, using, maintaining and administering databases. Depending on which tests and how many are passed, there are multiple certificates that can be earned showing increasing levels of knowledge.
Learning how to use these databases and preparing for employment or certification is best done through experience. Most database vendors have versions of their products that can be downloaded and installed for personal use for free. Certification classes - on-line and classroom - can combined with reference books to supplement experimentation. The books are important to acquire anyways, since it can be critical to have a good reference library at your fingertips when things go wrong and minutes count.
Non-Database Skills
Being a DBA (Database Administrator) or developer requires more than just database knowledge. A database never operates in isolation. It is always connected to something - the Internet, a reporting tool or a data entry system among many options. Usually, it is connected to multiple other systems. All of this connectedness means that there are a lot of ways something can break. Knowing enough about these other components and how they work will make troubleshooting much easier.
Some of the other knowledge that is helpful includes: computer hardware, network protocols, operating systems, storage systems, identity management and data privacy laws. Each of these impacts how a database will perform and may even prevent an otherwise properly setup database from being accessible or usable.
Database Skills
There are a number of critical knowledge points that must be mastered for anybody working with databases. Having this knowledge will ease interactions with other database professionals.
* Referential Integrity (RI) and Data Quality. RI describes how everything in the database is related. Foreign keys and primary keys are the backbone of RI. RI and constraints are key components of Data Quality. Together, they help control what can be put into the database, which helps the keep the information in the database meaningful. For example, an on-line store cannot have a meaningful Order placed if the Customer does not exist or if they request a negative quantity of a non-returnable product. This is most important for data modelers and developers.
* Indexing. Indexing are be the most efficient way to access a table in a relational database. A good index makes it quick to find a desired record. A bad index takes up space and slows down inserts and updates to the table. When a useful index is not available, the database engine generally has to fall back to reading all the records in the table to find what is being sought. For large tables in frequently used queries, this can kill the database, rendering it unusable. This is critical for developers and administrators to understand.
* Partitioning, tablespaces and sizing. These terms are all about how the information in the database is stored on disk, how fast and how much it can grow. Critical for an administrator.
* Security. This boils down to who can view and change any part of the database - from data to configuration. This is important for all database professionals.
* Backups. While database vendors develop their products to provide high levels of protection for the data that will be stored, there is always a way for something to go bad enough to corrupt or destroy a database. Backups allow for the database to be restored if that happens. This task is usually entrusted to the administrators.
* DDL (Data Definition Language). DDL is how tables, synonyms, indexes and any other database object is defined. This is the bread and butter of administrators and data modelers. It is also widely used by developers.
* DML (Data Manipulation Language). DML is the primary way a developer interacts with the database. The applications almost always use DML to read, insert, update or delete data. A developer who does not know DML is not a database developer. An administrator who does not know DML cannot help developers minimize their impacts on the system or troubleshoot problematic queries.
* System Schema. A schema is an grouped collection of database objects. How they are grouped and accessed varies among database vendors. The System schema is the collection that holds the data about the database - table names, definitions, users, permissions, indexes, etc. Knowing how to work with this schema is one of the major responsibilities of an administrator. Developers can answer a lot of questions using them as well.
There are many more skills and career paths to anybody well versed in using databases. Developers, administrators and data modelers are just the three paths that are the first ones to open up - with most entry-level careers being developers and administrators. Acquiring the skills and knowledge discussed here is a great way to break into a database career. Continued learning and expansion of skills are critical to the long term advancement of that career.
Like most careers it takes time, experience and demonstrated skill to become respected and successful. For those who are up to the challenge, this career choice can be varied and rewarding.