MySQL DBA

[Matt Graham]

From: Trent Shipley <tshipley at deru.com>
> I actually doubt many people are really competent at managing a LAMP
> stack all by themselves.

?  I have several co-workers who can do that.  Heck, I can do that,
for the most part, though the more weird corners of Apache configs
make me need to RTFM because they don't come up that often.

> How much more complex has MySQL gotten in the last five years or so?
> What would be involved in gaining competence?  Do you think you
> could read up on MySQL, then find people stupid enough to let you
> work on MySQL databases, preferably for money so you could get
> experience?  How would you encourage such stupidity?

The my.cnf has a bunch more options now than it did five years ago.  
Since you can install mysql on any box you care to, you can put
together a test server with minimal effort and $0.  Then you can
simulate load (or whatever), set up a replication cluster, back up
and restore, tweak settings and watch how that alters performance,
and all of those fun things.  The big PDF manual has all kinds of
examples in it.

Don't know about getting a job doing MySQL DBA stuff though.  I'd
worked with it before, but I'm doing many more DBAish things now
because nobody else really wants to do them.  I wouldn't call
myself a DBA, but a JOAT who has a DBA hat and who has done a
bunch of things in a highly available 24x7 place where the master
DB barfing = Very Bad Things and many phone calls.

-- 
Matt G / Dances With Crows
The Crow202 Blog:  http://crow202.org/wordpress/
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see