Who is a Database Administrator

This should actually be my first post... the reason I started the blog is to create a repository for solutions to issues I have encountered and resolved and also deem appropriate (legally/morally) for the public domain,  hence the lack of an introductory post. So, this post will serve as an advise/reference for new IT professionals that are trying to make a choice about which field to specialize in and the ones that the Database Administration function has fallen upon.

Typical DBA's desk.

Without any further ado let me introduce you to what we Database Administrators do and why big organisations need us regardless of their line of business.

In simple terms, a Database Administrator is responsible for performance, integrity, availability and security of business data of organisations. Database Administrator roles vary depending on the type of database, the processes they administer and the capabilities of the database management system (DBMS) in use. Every organisation has a corporate/core database which all or most of their applications interface with. Various industries have different names for this central database which acts as the heart of their business systems. In addition to this central database, ancillary applications usually have their own self contained databases which it's application specific data are stored.

Typical day-to-day duties of Database Administrators popularly called DBAs include;
 - Implementing, supporting and managing the corporate database.
 - Ensuring optimum performance of the database.
 - Designing and configuring database objects such as tables, views, indexes functions and procedures.
 - Ensuring data integrity, availability and security.
 - Deployment and monitoring database servers.
 - Designing and implementing backup and data archiving solutions.
 - Planing and implementing solutions for disaster recovery.
 - Analyse and report on corporate data to help shape business decisions.
 - Produce entity relationship & data flow diagrams and database normalization schemata.


Although there are no hard and fast rules on the educational roadmap to becoming a DBA, typically a DBA should have a bachelor's degree in Computer Science or  other related disciplines. Most employers favour those with professional certifications of some sorts from leading DBMS like Oracle Database, Microsoft SQL Server, IBM DB2, Sybase or MySQL. For senior DBAs it is desirable to have an MBA in Management Information Systems, MSc in Database Management/Computer Systems.

As a DBA, you have to continually improve on your skills and expand your areas of expertise because it is practically impossible to learn everything in this space. Let me put my premise in perspective - Oracle 11g Database has over 358 system parameters with each one having 4 properties that could have at least 2 possible values. I'm not going to leave you to do the math because you might not get my point. This implies that there are over (358^4)^2 different configuration options for an Oracle 11g database. I don't have a calculator capable of computing the actual value, but I know it is a very large number - ultimately no DBA knows it all.

Hope this helps!

Kehinde.