How to get a customer to understand the importance of a qualified DBA?

This is definitely one of those 'you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink' situations.

This is definitely one of those 'you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink' situations. My recommendation here would be to quote the DBA services as hourly, and make the rate high enough that you can outsource the work if you decide you want to. When (not if) the SQL servers start to have problems, the firm is on the hook.

I would also recommend that you include in your quote a non-optional 2 hour database technology review once per year. This is your opportunity to say 'You spent XXX on database maintenance this year, most of which was spent fighting fires that could have been easily avoided if you had just spent XXXX/4 and hired a DBA. We care about you as a customer, and we want you to save money, so we really recommend that you commit to using a DBA to perform periodic preventative maintenance'.

I would also recommend that you categorize any support requests as having root cause because of database maintenance vs other causes. This will let you put a nice pie chart in front of the customer during their annual review (which they are going to pay you to perform). It is critical to manage the perception so they don't think your code is causing the problems.

You might even go so far as to share these metrics (db related issue vs non-db related issue) with them on a quarterly basis. Sometimes people need to experience pain before they change. The key is to not be in between the hammer and their thumb as they learn the lesson, and hourly quoted work is one way of doing this.As a side note, this sort of question is of great interest to a large number of developers.

I'd say that this sort of thing could impact a programmer's quality of life more than any algorithm or library question ever could. Thanks for asking it!

Perhaps the link below from MS SQL Tips could give you some good talking points. But people who aren't technical won't respond to a technical explanation of the necessity of good DBA you are likley going to have to work toward proving the cost of bad DBA. Work out the worst case scenarios and see how they feel about them.

If you can make it seem like a good financial move (and I think we all know it is) it will be an easy sell. mssqltips.com/tip.asp?tip=1278.

No DBA on a system that size is a disaster waiting to happen. If they don't understand that, they are not qualified to run a database that size. I'd recommend that they talk to other companies with similar sized databases and have them ask them about their DBAs and what they do for them, and if they think they could survive without them.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.