Will automated databases kill the DBA position?

Oracle’s Autonomous Database may have database admins worried, but it shouldn’t. The DBA role in an automated world will change, but it won’t be eliminated.

Database administrators (DBAs) are right to worry about automation.

A decade ago the rise of cloud computing took hardware management away from DBAs, leaving many worried about the future of DBAs in the era of virtualized servers.

Now in 2019 there’s another database automation tool worrying DBAs: Oracle’s Autonomous Database. Unlike traditional databases, the Oracle Autonomous Database takes care of most mundane tasks, and even some of the more complicated ones, all on its own, taking yet another batch of responsibilities away from DBAs.

At first glance it makes sense for DBAs to be worried about autonomous databases: What would their role be in a world where databases manage themselves? There’s more to it than that, and DBAs need not be concerned about the loss of their positions.

That doesn’t mean DBAs should rest on the laurels of their current skill set. The era of automation we’re entering will make the DBA role very different. Oracle said it best in the advice they give for DBAs (PDF) in the era of autonomy: It’s time to pivot away from data administration and become a data architect.

Oracle is the first database company to release an automated product, but it most certainly won’t be the last. Since Oracle’s approach to database automation is the only model we have to go on, that’s how I’ll be approaching the general idea of database automation.

Oracle’s Autonomous Database “eliminates complexity, human error, and manual management, helping to ensure higher reliability, security, and more operational efficiency at the lowest cost,” the company said.

The goal behind Oracle Autonomous Database is to eliminate a lot of the manual labor that DBAs had to do in the past, which in turn eliminates quite a bit of their day-to-day responsibilities, which haven’t changed much in the past decade.

Oracle breaks its database automation into three areas:

Those and other changes, Oracle claims, can cut an enterprise’s AWS bill in half if the company migrates to an Oracle Autonomous Database.