An IT Professional, who is responsible for Installation, Configuration, Upgrading, Administration, Monitoring, Maintenance and Security of Databases in any organization.
Phases of a DBA Career path (not limited to these
only)
- Junior
DBAs
- Mid-level
DBAs
- Senior
DBAs
- DBA
consultants
- Manager
or director of database administration/information technology
- Data
Architects
- Release
Managers
- Change
Managers
Main Responsibilities
- Installing
and upgrading the database server tools
- Planning
future storage requirements for the database systems
- Modifying
the database structure based on 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 databases
- Monitoring
and optimizing the performance of the databases
- Planning
for backup and recovery of database information
- Data
Archiving
- Backing
up and restoring databases
- Contacting
database vendor for technical support
- Generating
various reports by querying from database as per need
- Participating
in Disaster Recovery Tests
- Working
closely with other teams like Network Operation Teams, Monitoring Teams
High Level Skills that a DBA must have
- Top
Communication skills
- Good
knowledge of database theory
- Good
knowledge of database design, logical or physical
- Good
knowledge of RDBMS
- Knowledge
of structured query language (SQL), e.g. Transact-SQL
- Understanding
of distributed computing architectures
- Understanding
of the underlying operating system
- Understanding
of storage technologies, memory management, disk arrays, NAS/SAN,
networking
- Understanding
of routine maintenance, recovery, and handling failover of a Database
As I mentioned, today’s
jobs are more demanding. DBAs are now a days performing many roles and when
they specialized in those roles, they grow like
Production Support DBAs: These DBAs are
focused on the physical aspects of database administration such as DBMS
installation, configuration, patching, upgrades, backups, restores, refreshes,
performance optimization, maintenance and disaster recovery.
Development DBAs: These DBAs are focused on the logical and development aspects of database administration such as data
model design and maintenance, DDL (data definition language) generation, SQL
writing and tuning, coding stored procedures, collaborating with developers to
help choose the most appropriate DBMS feature/functionality and other
pre-production activities.
Application DBAs: These DBAs are
usually found in organizations that have purchased 3rd party application
software such as ERP (enterprise resource planning) and CRM (customer
relationship management) systems.
Hybrid DBAs: As name suggests,
these DBAs are usually those who performs almost all the tasks which are mentioned.
These DBAs might not be specialized however they are the one who grows like
Architects at enterprise level.