At
http://trubix.blogspot.com
I've written a blog on the importance of peripheral DBA skills. In the
Solaris world, the following peripheral skills are very helpful for
managing database environments:
- Solaris administration.
- ZFS.
- Containers and Zones.
- Dtrace.
- Application Servers - knowledge of Oracle, Apache, JBoss, LightHTTP, connection pooling, etc.
- Monitoring skills - OEM, Enterprise Monitor, Nagios, Cacti, etc.
- Ability to support developers - PHP, Java, .NET.
- Networking skills.
- Storage.
From my perspective, the one area DBAs should learn more about is in storage. It's not about being a storage expert, its about understanding the basics and being able to communicate with storage teams and system administrators.