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Database Administrator
A Database Administrator (DBA) is a person who is responsible for the environmental aspects of a database. In general, these include:
- Recoverability - Creating and testing Backups
- Integrity - Verifying or helping to verify data integrity
- Security - Defining and/or implementing access controls to the data
- Availability - Ensuring maximum uptime
- Performance - Ensuring maximum performance given budgetary constraints
- Development and Testing Support - Helping programmers and engineers to efficiently utilize the database.
The role of a database administrator has changed according to the technology of database management systems (DBMSs) as well as the needs of the owners of the databases. For example, although logical and physical database designs are traditionally the duties of a database analyst or database designer, a DBA may be tasked to perform those duties.
The duties of a database administrator vary and depend on the job description, corporate and Information Technology policies and the technical features and capabilities of the DBMS being administered. They nearly always include disaster recovery (backups and testing of backups), performance analysis and tuning, and some database design.
Some of the roles of the DBA may include:
Installation of new software — It is primarily the job of the DBA to install new versions of DBMS software, application software, and other software related to DBMS administration. It is important that the DBA or other IS staffing member’s test this new software before it is moved into a production environment.
Configuration of hardware and software with the system administrator — In many cases the system software can only be accessed by the system administrator. In this case, the DBA must work closely with the system administrator to perform software installations, and to configure hardware and software so that it functions optimally with the DBMS.
Security administration — One of the main duties of the DBA is to monitor and administer DBMS security. This involves adding and removing users, administering quotas, auditing, and checking for security problems.
Data analysis — The DBA will frequently be called on to analyze the data stored in the database and to make recommendations relating to performance and efficiency of that data storage. This might relate to the more effective use of indexes, enabling "Parallel Query" execution, or other DBMS specific features.
Database design (preliminary) — The DBA is often involved at the preliminary database-design stages. Through the involvement of the DBA, many problems that might occur can be eliminated. The DBA knows the DBMS and system, can point out potential problems, and can help the development team with special performance considerations.
Data modeling and optimization — By modeling the data, it is possible to optimize the system layout to take the most advantage of the I/O subsystem.
