Multi-Requirements for a single Job is a New Trend and has been On and Off the JOB Market Shelf. Combining Technologies to Hire now-a days has absolutely become a new Trend, Example would be asking for SAP<Basis> with SQL Server, SQL Server with COGNOS, SQL Server DBA/Developer, SQL Server with Oracle/Sybase/MySQL. So you see this has Opened up a Whole new world for the companies hiring, where they can have Multi-technology people working for them, which will help them pay a single person for dual job responsibilities. This has come as a welcome notion by the People who are EXPERTS and DEAILED Oriented and a SETBACK for People Switching jobs Categories and Who are not Oriented to Learning New Technologies. But if you are definitely GOOD at what you do and Know your basics, there is a greater chance, you will be hired setting aside the “MUST HAVE” or “IF you know this a PLUS” categorization. My effort is in outlining the Core requirements as it goes today, and have seen some of my friends, working in these aspects, even if hired as a SQL Server DBA.

Keep your Eye and Brain Trained to Learn like technologies or everything under the same umbrella, which will help you land up Good opportunities as well as Good Salaries.

Some might agree and some not, keeping the Debate alive for years to come as another SQL Server DBA, sitting at a satisfied job has different views than DBA’s trying for better opportunities every time have a diff perspective.

Development:

• Learn about SQL joins(INNER/OUTER/FULL/CROSS/MERGE/SELF)
• lean how to use Parameters in your Queries.
• Learn about SQL Cursors.
• Learn how to Create / Alter an INDEX. Index Fill factors and Fragmentations.
• Have knowledge about Triggers (DML/DDL)
• How to create/Drop a Database / Table / Stored Procedure / Function using T-SQL.
• Knowledge about the basic structure of a SP/Function.
• How to create/drop a Login/user using T-sql.

Other Must Must have Knowledge:

• Learn about various tasks in SSIS and how to use them.
• Learn how to deploy reports and reporting security / Data Sources in SSRS.
• Learn how to deploy SSAS and its Security.
• Learn about Data warehousing (Cubes/partitions/Facts/Measures/Dimensions/Star and SnowFlake Schemas)
• Learn about Creating Jobs for SSAS/SSIS.
• Learn about SAN/DAS/NAS Storages. (EMC / IBM) – I am not talking about the detailed configuration, but get a overview of what these technologies are and how does the hardware look like. and What ate the configuration Steps. RAID configuration. How to carve ZONES/Volumes and attach/Present these to a Windows Server. Google and YouTube will help you in looking at the hardware and configuration part.

Other Must have PLUS’es:

• Learn about Oracle Enterprise Manager.
• Learn about how to do backups in Oracle using RMAN.
• Have a General Knowledge abut Sybase/MYSQL Structure and basic concepts.

Core SQL Server DBA Tasks:

• SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) – Understand what happens in the SDLC based model and then apply your logic to Databases Objects.
• How to see processes using sysprocesses (or sys.sysprocesses, sys.dm_exec_requests, sys.dm_exec_sessions)
• Blocking / Deadlock (using sp_lock, syslockinfo and sysprocesses, sys.exec_requests)
• Logins vs. users and Orphaned users (how to correct them) Read my Article here
• Index Fragmentation / Alter Index / Create index. (sys.dm_db_index_physical_stats)
• T-SQL Performance Enhancements (Tuning SQL statements/Stored Procedures) (Managing SQL Joins with
  Table  Partitioning / Index Fragmentation / Creating Judgmental indexes)
• sp_configure structure and how to use it. There are several settings like “Max Degree of parallelism” and other too, understand them.
• SQL Server Backups (FULL / Differential / Transaction Log) as a DR Strategy and various ways to maintain Backups.
• SQL Server Error Logs and Event Viewer for Issue Resolutions.
• Query Execution Plans (how to read them and their benefits) [Index Seeks vs Scans]
• SOX Compliance Strategies. (Server / Database Security) Read my Article here
• How to performance Tune the SQL Server Data Files (by spreading them Across Diff disk volumes from diff sets of RAID’s will affect SQL Server Performance.)
• RAID Levels and the most commonly used levels and its benefits (RAID 5 and RAID 10) Read my Article here
• Common DBCC commands (CHECKDB, INPUTBUFFER, INDEXDEFRAG,TRACEON etc)
• ISOLATION Levels Overview.
• Steps in Upgrading a SQL Server Database from version 2000 to 2005/2008
• How to upgrade DTS to SSIS.
• Improvements in SQL Server 2008 over 2005 (Backup compression / New Date Time Data Types / New Data Auditing Features / Policy Based Management / LINQ Support / Change Tracking Feature / FileStream /etc.)
• HIGH Availability (Clustering / Replication / Database Mirroring / Log Shipping)
• Replication (MERGE / Transactional / Snapshot )
• HA-Clustering (Active Active/Active Passive)-how to setup.

Some Basic Questions Always asked by a recruiter initially.(These have become the standard in initial screening. I have asked these same question on behalf of my employer, in tech interviews but in detail)

• How many clustered and non-clustered indexes in a table. (1 clustered and 249 non clustered)
• Types of Replication (Snapshot,Merge,Transactional,Peer to peer in 2008)
• Types of Clustering  (Active-Active and Active passive)
• Types of joins(LEFT,RIGHT,INNER,CROSS,SELF,FULL)
• How to get the most recent added row if the table has identity column. (@@IDENTITY, SCOPE_IDENTITY, IDENT_CURRENT)
• Types of Backups available in SQL Server (Full, Differential, Transactional, Filegroup)
• How to execute a dynamically generated SQL (sp_executesql, EXEC, EXECUTE)

This is a Guarantee if you have a good knowledge in these subjects, you should be able to get through your interview like a breeze and so do perform your duties of SQL Server DBA with confidence.
Yes and this is what it takes to be a Pro-Active DBA.

I will be writing about each topic in the coming days, so keep watching.
Any comments are welcome to solidify this structure even more.

More information can be read here from John Sansom here