I'm running into Db performance issues with an OTLP project I'm working on. Another developer and I have reached the end of our accumulated performance knowledge and seek out an individual to join the team to help us speed up our application.
For some background we've done schema changes to denormalize pieces of the data, optimized every query, ran multiple database tuning advisers to get our indexes just right, tuned MSSql's server options.
We don't need somebody to come in and tell us joins can be slow and what deadlocking is, we need somebody who knows what to do after exhausting all the steps listed above.
Anybody have any tips or experiences hiring OLTP DBA's to share? What kind of questions can we ask the DBA during the interview process?
Its an odd situation to be in, we know we need somebody who knows more than the current team, but we don't know what questions to ask because we don't know what the next steps are. Does that make sense?
Ok, this tells me something:
For some background we've done schema changes to denormalize pieces of the data, optimized every query, ran multiple database tuning advisers to get our indexes just right, tuned MSSql's server options.
You've already matched or exceeded what 90% of people who call themselves DBAs will be able to do.
The problem is that a lot of DBAs aren't really programmers, they are more on the system administration side of things. You need a DBA programmer who is not only really good at TSQL, but who knows your other programming language(s) as well.
I spend a significant portion of my time on database tuning issues like this, and the solution often involves significant redesigns all the way from the front end back to the database schema. You can't solve these problems in isolation, and without complete control (and total understanding) of the entire architecture, you'll never get the performance you need.
You might be the best person for the job, and it might be smarter for you to hire somebody to take busy work off your plate so you can concentrate on the OLTP performance problems.