Data and databases are considered to be the essential assets of any organization of our times. Implementing proper administration of databases requires careful planning and thorough scrutiny. At the basic level, you need to consider what an administrator can do, and the level of knowledge one possesses.

Database admin’s job

The information technology revolution had resulted in a massive volume of data being generated and managed by the enterprises. Banks, insurance firms, financial corporates, supply chains, e-commerce, etc. for example, generate a massive volume of customer-related data. With thousands of customers generating data at every minute, this data instantly consumes a lot of space on the data servers and needs to be managed to ensure effective decision making. The ideal job role of a database admin is to manage small to big databases, for which he or she should possess a fine set of skills.

Database admin should have solid organizational skills to manage huge databases in a structured or unstructured format. Well-organized data will make it much easier for the users to fetch the needed data whenever needed and make use of it for analysis and perfect decision making. On the other hand, a poorly organized database may result in slow access, which could hamper the overall productivity. Admins also must organize the processes and procedures related to the database, like proper maintenance, backup, and recovery. An unexpected disaster in a data center or data server may result in downtime or complete crash down in the enterprise operations.

Technical skills for database admin

A good DBA must possess technical skills to work with the servers which host the data. Administrators should understand how the database applications store data and retrieve it and how to build databases. They should also be able to understand technical aspects of the database organizations, and how these affect the computers and network performance.

It is highly likely that database applications and databases frequently confront technical problems, for which the database admins should be able to find practical solutions. In case of any crash down, the DBAs must be able to avoid any data loss and ensure instant recovery.

1. Database design and data modeling

The DBA should possess the ability to build a perfect physical database structure based on a logical data model and the application specs. By creating a data resource management model, the DBA is responsible for data modeling, data normalization, and logical design.

2. Metadata management

The database administrator is also responsible for metadata management and repository usage. As RemoteDBA points out, a DBA may sometimes be double up as data architects who may collect, store, retrieve, and manage the database through queries of the organizational metadata. Without metadata, the given data may lack any meaning.

3. Creation of database schema

Another critical skill a DBA must have is the ability to translate the given data model or the logical database into a physical database and to manage the same once it has got implemented.

4. Ensuring data integrity

Database admin also should be able to design perfect databases so that only the most appropriate and accurate data got into the system and maintained accordingly. To do this, DBAs must deploy various types of integrity measures, including referential integrity, entity integrity, checking of constraints, and appropriate database triggers. DBAs are also responsible for ensuring the structural integrity of databases.

5. Proper performance management and fine-tuning of data

Handling performance issues is one of the biggest challenges after database implementation during the phase of database management. These are of various types, coming up as the worse nightmare for the DBAs. A good DBA must proactively monitor the database environment and should make necessary changes to the data structure, application logic, SQL, or the subsystems to ensure optimal performance.

6. Ensuring data availability

Database applications need to be up and running for 24×7. The DBA needs to ensure round-the-clock data availability through proper administration tactics. Downtime in data may result in a massive loss to modern-day enterprises, especially the financial institutions or the e-com businesses, etc.

7. Review of SQL codes

Even though the SQL queries are written by the programmers who develop and run the application, database admins should be ultimately blamed for the poor data performance. So, DBAs must understand SQL in-depth to review the queries and the host language in which the programs are written to suggest changes, if any, to ensure optimization.

8. Procedural skills

Database management requires the ability to handle not merely the data. Above that, DBA must also possess essential procedural skills to design, implement, maintain, and debug the stored procedures, data triggers, and user-oriented functions that are stored in the database systems.

9. Data integrity and security

Database administrators are also responsible for ensuring that authorized users get access to the data. This demands administration of robust security infrastructure in terms of test and production databases. Also, they need auditing skills to document data compliance.

10. Proper data backup and recovery

Databases need reliable backup and recovery practices and procedures in place, which is one of the administrators’ crucial responsibilities. A proper backup and recovery mechanism in place is insurance for the DBA. Considering the volatility of data and the hardware’s vulnerability, DBAs should implement the most appropriate strategy for this.

11. Planning storage capacity

As data consumption continues to grow, DBAs should be prepared to handle more data, a surge of users, and a higher number of connections. The DBA should also be able to foresee the growth in data and the future usage patterns to adopt necessary scalable database applications to accommodate the extra capacity needs as and when needed.

In any given organization, DBA acts as the central point of contact in terms of database knowledge and administration. More databases, including SQL and NoSQL, are coming up lately, the need for big data and artificial intelligence, etc. to make the database administration field more challenging and complicated. So, being a database administrator, you should update your knowledge and skills to ensure that you are equipped to tackle all upcoming challenges in terms of database administration.