The database administrator (DBA)

A Database Admininstrator, Database Analyst or Database Developer is the person responsible for managing the information within an organization. As most companies continue to experience inevitable growth of their databases, these positions are probably the most solid within the IT industry. In most cases, it is not an area that is targeted for layoffs or downsizing. On the downside, however, most database departments are often understaffed, requiring adminstrators to perform a multitude of tasks. Depending on the company and the department, this role can either be highly specialized or incredibly diverse. The primary role of the Database Administrator is to adminster, develop, maintain and implement the policies and procedures necessary to ensure the security and integrity of the corporate database. Sub roles within the Database Administrator classification may include security, architecture, warehousing and/or business analysis. Other primary roles will include:

Implementation of data models Database design Database accessibility Performance issues Capacity issues Data replication Table Maintainence

Database Administrators are often on-call and required to work as needed. This position carries an enormous amount of responsibility.

The people responsible for managing databases are called database administrators. Each database administrator, dubbed DBA for the sake of brevity, may be engaged in performing various database manipulation tasks such as archiving, testing, running, security control, etc., all related to the environmental side of the databases. Their job is very important, since in today's world, almost all of the information a company uses is kept in databases. Due to the fact that most databases use a different approach to storing and handling data, there are different types of DBAs. Most of the major vendors who provide database solutions also offer courses to certify the DBA. Database administrators work in offices or labs. They usually work about 40 hours a week,
but evening or weekend work may be needed for meeting deadlines. Telecommutingworking from homeis common for computer professionals.

The DBA's duties

The exact set of database administration duties of each DBA is dependent on his/her job profile, the IT policies applied by the company he/she works for and last but not least - the concrete parameters of the database management system in use. A DBA must be able to think logically to

solve all problems and to easily work in a team with both DBA colleagues and staff with no computer training.

Frequent updates
Some of the basic database management tasks of a DBA supplement the work of a system administrator and include hardware/ software configuration, as well as installation of new DBMS software versions. Those are very important tasks since the proper installation and configuration of the database management software and its regular updates are crucial for the optimal functioning of the DBMS and hence - of the databases, since the new releases often contain bug fixes and security updates.

Data analysis and security

Database security administration and data analysis are among the major duties of a DBA. He/she is responsible for controlling the DBMS security by adding and removing users, managing database quotas and checking for security issues. The DBA is also engaged in analyzing database contents and improving the data storage efficiency by optimizing the use of indexes, enabling the Parallel Query execution, etc.

Database design
Apart from the tasks related to the logical and the physical side of the database management process, DBAs may also take part in database design operations. Their main role is to give developers recommendations about the DBMS specificities, thus helping them avoid any eventual database performance issues. Other important tasks of the DBAs are related to data modeling aimed at optimizing the system layout, as well as to the analysis and creation of new databases. A database administrator's responsibilities can include the following tasks:[8]

Installing and upgrading the database server and application tools Allocating system storage and planning future storage requirements for the database system Modifying the database structure, as necessary, from information given by application developers Enrolling users and maintaining system security Ensuring compliance with database vendor license agreement Controlling and monitoring user access to the database Monitoring and optimizing the performance of the database Planning for backup and recovery of database information Maintaining archived data Backing up and restoring databases Contacting database vendor for technical support Generating various reports by querying from database as per need.

The DBA should posses the following skills (1) A good knowledge of the operating system(s) (2) A good knowledge of physical database design (3) Ability to perform both Oracle and also operating system performance monitoring and the necessary adjustments. (4) Be able to provide a strategic database direction for the organisation. (5) Excellent knowledge of Oracle backup and recovery scenarios. (6) Good skills in all Oracle tools. (7) A good knowledge of Oracle security management. (8) A good knowledge of how Oracle acquires and manages resources. (9) Sound knowledge of the applications at your site. (10) Experience and knowledge in migrating code, database changes, data and menus through the various stages of the development life cycle. (11) A good knowledge of the way Oracle enforces data integrity. (12) A sound knowledge of both database and program code performance tuning. (13) A DBA should possess a sound understanding of the business. (14) A DBA should have sound communication skills with management, development teams, vendors, systems administrators and other related service providers.