the role of a database administrator

The Unsung Heroes Keeping Your Data Safe: Database Administrators

At present time, as they say, more and more depends on information. Each site, program, and
online service uses databases containing billions of records. It is crucial for companies to have
an effectively real-time system, as it is needed to fulfill customer orders, for making better
business decisions, and for keeping all the organizations functioning and flowing. Making all of
this possible is an unsung group of technology professionals: database administrators. Well, in a
nutshell, a database administrator works with what? Below you will get to know the information
about this unique but, in fact, indispensable profession.

What does it mean to be a database administrator?

A database administrator (DBA) is expected to supervise the operation, performance, security,
and authenticity of organizations’ databases. They make sure that databases and their related
applications are still functioning properly through tasks such as implementing new versions,
applying updates and fixes, modifying configuration to improve efficiency, backing up data and
recovering from lost data, determining the perfect number of database units to deploy, and
solving problems. Of course, there are individual DBAs who develop their expertise in specific
database platforms such as Oracle, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, MongoDB, or others, but at
their core, they are protecting the information that drives an organization.

Why Do Database Administrators Matter

Lacking a few good DBAs close supervision, databases may slow down and experience
outages, data corruption, breaches, and, in the worst-case scenario, the loss of records. Each of
these areas can negatively impact a company’s financials and reputation immediately and in the
long run. Especially for those companies that have vast volumes of data, leaving databases in
the hands of professional DBAs is like having derivatives guarding the royal treasure.

Some reasons why great DBAs are invaluable:

• Optimize Performance: DBAs ensure that databases achieve maximum speed and are more responsive to inquiries as well as more efficient.
• Enhance Security: The controls are put in place by DBAs to keep out the unauthorized and hopefully unnecessary exposures.
• Ensure High Availability: DBAs must work to minimize such potential breaks in availability, for information needs to be available at any time, day or night.
• Facilitate Operational Agility: It also enables the infrastructure to honor different business needs at the quickest time possible.
• Avoid costly problems: DBAs use precautions that enable organizations to prevent shattering
  outcomes.

In other words, DBAs are mission-critical support professionals that are charged with the
responsibility of data storage, maintaining database systems, avoiding risks, and driving
organizational success. They work in the background just as the heavies in football support the
offense, but nobody knows they are responsible for every fortune pegged on reliable access to
data.

The typical workday for a DBA involves a variety of technical tasks, including:

• Installation and Configuration: They install and upgrade databases, troubleshoot problems through patching, change settings of database servers, and add/subtract components such as CPUs, RAM, and disks.
• Performance Monitoring and Optimization: The DBAs monitor the workload on the databases, carry compression and analysis tests, apply work load profiling, analyze the slow-running SQL statements, optimize the queries, and correct the values required for high speeds.
• Backup and Recovery: To balance the danger of data loss, DBAs act in accordance with backup and verification and test restore procedures.
• Security Management: DBAs turn security features on/off, approve users, deny/assure access, implement security permissions, and look for security breaches.
• Capacity Planning: If there is growth in data or new types of workloads, DBAs proactively expand the areas of a database using servers or storage.
• Troubleshooting Issues: DBAs identify the facts behind the database failures or errors and fix them in the shortest time possible so as not to cause more havoc.
• Disaster Recovery: DBAs keep backup copies for the data in case of hardware crashes, data
• damage, hacker attacks, or other cataclysms.
• Automation and Administration: Database administrators script routine jobs in order to make
• them more efficient and increase automation. They do the upgrade, patching, licensing, and
• also the configuration management.
• It could go on for several pages; it goes without saying that DBAs design the database topologies to work for specified performance, security, reliability, and size to meet business needs.

Training and Background

An average education required to become a DBA entails getting a bachelor’s degree in
information technology, computer science, or any technical field, then proceeding to gain
necessary exposure to definite database solutions such as Oracle or SQL Server. It is not
surprising to find that many DBAs possess higher learning certification that runs on a system of
renewal with time. It can also refer to practical, hands-on experience in real database or system
administration.

DBAs also develop other interpersonal skills such as critical analysis, systematic problem
solving, communication/teamwork, and keenness on technologies. As reliance on technology in
business and other organizations continues to soar in the future, these unsung heroes are going
to keep warding off threats to this valuable organizational asset. Every outstanding online
experience for which Big Data access is crucial probably has a DBA waiting in the shadows and
warming up in anticipation of a call to duty at the slightest hint of an incident.