1. DATABASE ADMINISTRATION
“Databases are definitely growing,” Eckert says. “In the ’90s, you were a DBA or a network administrator, and the two didn’t talk to each other. And if you did, you didn’t know much about SQL if you were a network administrator, and you didn’t know much about network administration if you were a DBA.”
Now, though, the line has blurred and databases have become more the responsibility of network administrators.
“Now, pretty much every network administrator will have to touch a database somewhere, and will have to understand a lot of what’s going on on the design side as well, in order to properly use that database,” Eckert says.
And database administration is the task that often sticks in the craw of network admins. “SQL is a dry topic, so it’s usually the thing you hear people complain about the most nowadays,” Eckert says.