Most DBAs start their careers in a firefighting mindset. I sure did. Systems go down, war rooms are daily, alerts blow up, and dashboards light up like Grandma’s Christmas tree.
Being on call? It’s soul-sucking. Feels like having a laptop surgically strapped to your back 24/7. Friends text, “Costco run?” and you’re stuck reheating a sad TV dinner, watching Breaking Bad for the fifth time with your dogs. Eventually, the invites stop because your job has become a permanent excuse.
At first, firefighting feels heroic. But it’s not sustainable, and a constant reaction mode leads to burnout, mistakes, and wasted money.
Actual impact comes when shifting from reactive to proactive thinking, prioritizing reliability, resilience, scalability, and the mindset of a Database Reliability Engineer (DBRE). We focus on preventing problems before they occur. Instead of waiting for things to break, we build systems that don’t. By setting guardrails, we create an environment where databases run without manual intervention.
War rooms aren’t just costly in SLA credits; they drain human capital. Talented individuals often get stuck in reactive loops instead of improving systems.
As the saying goes:
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
If you’re in a war room three times a day, something is broken, not just the database. This blog is about what it means to be proactive as a DBRE and practical steps to move from chaos to reliability.
Why Be Proactive?
Being proactive isn’t just about making your life easier (though that’s a huge bonus).
It also:
- Reduces incidents before they disrupt your business
- Eliminates database debt
- Saves money on poorly performing code, hardware, licensing, and client credits
- Prevents burnout across teams
- Builds trust with developers, management, and customers
- Encourages teamwork, because proactive DBREs are approachable and solutions-focused
A proactive DBRE notices trends, understands thresholds, and recognizes patterns before they escalate. Performance problems and poor-performing code cost money. Yes, even bad code costs money (I will save that subject for another day).
Internal gains are great, but the benefits of proactive DBRE work create waves far beyond the team.
External Benefits of Being Proactive
Being proactive doesn’t just make life easier for your team; it creates positive waves across the entire business. Reliable systems mean fewer outages, happier customers, and fewer frantic support tickets. Customers stick around longer, trust your product, and don’t call at midnight wondering why things broke.
There’s a financial impact. Proactive DBREs prevent costly SLA penalties, avoid emergency fixes, and optimize hardware and licensing usage. That idle CPU or overbought license is fixed before it becomes wasted money.
Proactivity also affects credibility. Leadership, developers, and partners notice when systems run reliably. Your team is seen as competent, trustworthy, and solutions-focused, not just crisis responders.
Compliance and risk reduction matter as well. Tested backups, disaster recovery drills, and careful monitoring show the company prioritizes data integrity seriously and lowers regulatory risk.
Finally, proactive practices give your company a competitive edge. Stable systems allow faster releases, improvements without fear of downtime, and stronger teamwork. Documenting processes and mentoring others spreads reliability and builds a culture of excellence.
Knowing why proactive work matters is one thing; putting it into action is another. Here’s how I make it part of my daily routine.
Schedule Monitoring Time
Too many teams only look at metrics when something’s already broken. I do it differently. Every morning, I spend at least 20 minutes over coffee checking yesterday’s dashboards, looking at trends, and utilizing tools like SQL Sentry or Wisdom (I am a HUGE fan of Wisdom’s compare feature). That small investment saves hours of chaos later. It turns firefighting into forecasting.
Predicting performance issues is a skill I’ve gained over my career. I come prepared with facts and actionable information. Developers, by the way, don’t like outages either. Most appreciate feedback to prevent war rooms.
Preventive Monitoring and Baselines
Monitoring only works if you know what “normal” looks like. That’s where baselines come in.
Track things like:
- Average CPU during business hours
- Typical transactions per second
- Normal IO patterns
- Scheduled workloads
Without baselines, you’re guessing. One system may handle 70% CPU fine; another might tip over. Servers sitting at 10% all day? That’s wasted CPU, hardware, and money.
Smart alerts catch trends, not noise. Alerts no one acts on are worthless. Ignored alerts mean your monitoring isn’t working. Dashboards matter too. They should show metrics you need at a glance: CPU, memory, timeouts, errors. A good dashboard tells a story. If you’re not going to act on it, don’t monitor it.
Preventive Measures Beyond Monitoring
Some war rooms happen when something goes into production that shouldn’t have. Proactive DBREs prevent that by working closely with developers and other teams. Communication is key. I enjoy working with developers and have a lot of respect for their work. I’ve learned more from them about applications than any manual could teach me.
Here’s what proactive DBREs do:
- Review code and schemas
- Run load tests
- Test backups and failovers (don’t just assume they work)
- Plan capacity and scale ahead of growth
- Tune queries and stored procedures
- Automate repetitive tasks
Backups and DR, especially, shouldn’t be trusted to work when disasters happen. Run drills at least once a year. And automation? If you’re doing something manual more than once, script it. Saves time, sanity, and mistakes.
Find a Balance
If you’re stuck in a war room three times a day, it’s time to move from reacting to proactively managing.
Constant firefighting usually signals deeper problems:
- Poor monitoring
- Weak communication
- Lack of transparency in change management
- Insufficient capacity planning
- Rushed releases
- No clear database strategy
- Monolithic systems that cannot scale
- Database debt from years of reactive work
Proactive work isn’t sustainable if it’s only done by one person; it’s a culture shift. There will always be things outside our control, but we can take charge of the things we can.
Tips for Creating a Proactive Environment
Building a proactive culture takes more than one person. It’s a mindset shift for the whole team. I worked with a CTO who completely changed how I viewed database reliability. He had a saying I’ll never forget: “Never waste a good incident.”
Every outage or fire is a chance to improve, not just recover. Instead of patching and moving on, ask why it happened and how to prevent it next time. That mindset shaped the proactive DBRE I am today.
Lessons I carry forward:
- Protect time for monitoring and capacity planning. Don’t wait for something to break to notice trends.
- Fix broken processes. Many problems come from workflow, not technology.
- Create consistent processes with clear escalation paths for high-priority issues.
- Invest in the right tools. Automation, alerts, and dashboards reduce manual work and give breathing room. Balance dashboards and alerts; sometimes one should be the other.
- Show the numbers. Demonstrate to leaders the cost of war rooms compared to the savings from proactive improvements.
- Recognize your boundaries. If outages are considered normal or it’s acceptable to let things burn, consider a change.
Fight Burnout by Building Reliability
Proactive DBREs prevent burnout by making work predictable instead of crisis-driven. Nights and weekends stay free, teams retain talent, and time shifts from emergencies to planned work. Every fire prevented is one less stressful day and one less costly outage. Ignoring prevention builds database debt that will eventually demand repayment.
Being proactive is not just about fixing problems; it is about building systems that prevent them. Customers should never be the ones finding issues before you do (I get they do from time to time, but it should not be every day). Monitor with purpose, set baselines, avoid alert fatigue, create meaningful dashboards, review code and schemas, automate where possible, and integrate preventive measures into development.
From sleepless war room nights to reliable, self-sustaining systems, proactive DBRE work turns chaos into confidence for the team, the business, and your own sanity. The payoff is fewer incidents, lower costs, stronger partnerships, and less burnout. Work smarter, prevent fires before they start, and create an environment where both databases and teams thrive.
What other things do you do to be proactive? Share your tips in the comments.
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