This line of thinking will ultimately end in, well,
disaster. Is this a controversial claim? Absolutely. I have yet to be convinced otherwise,
though. If you disagree, I??™d love to have a good argument over a cup of coffee (in the
morning) or a beer (any other time).
I am not saying DBAs have the responsibility to know absolutely everything there is
to know about servers, tape devices, storage arrays, and network configurations. There
are varying degrees of responsibility. What I am asserting is that if there is a technology
that integrates somehow with SQL Server, DBAs have the responsibility to know enough
to be able to discuss possible issues and solutions with a specialist in that technology.
When it comes to disaster recovery, what are the critical hardware factors involved?
Well, simply put, hardware breaks eventually. Software only breaks if there is a flaw in
the code; the passage of time alone does not cause software to degenerate. Not so with
hardware.
Beyond out and out failure, hardware can present challenges by virtue of its very
design. Bulk data storage, whether on hard drives or backup tapes, is based on magnetic
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