Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
tend to include many highly product-specific features that require a thoroughly
trained individual to handle.
You might find, depending on the company, that there are responsibilities
that go beyond those listed here. The database administrator's role tends to
become something of a catchall. When something comes up related to the data-
base, if it isn't specifically the responsibility of someone else, then it must belong
to the database administrator.
Monitoring Performance
One of the key functions performed by database administration is performance
monitoring. Using utility programs, the database administrators can gauge the per-
formance of the running DBMS environment. This activity has a number of impli-
cations. It is important to know how fast the various applications are executing
as part of ensuring that response time requirements are being met. Also, this type
of performance information is pertinent to future hardware and software acqui-
sition plans. Depending on the characteristics of the DBMS and the operating sys-
tem under which it is running, the performance information may be used to redis-
tribute the database application load among different CPUs or among different
memory regions within a system. Finally, performance information can be used
to ferret out inefficient applications or queries that may be candidates for redesign.
The database administrators must also interface with the IS organization's
systems programming staff, who maintain the mainframe operating systems
(if present). The systems programmers will also have performance and trou-
bleshooting responsibilities, which may overlap with those of the database
administrators. The net of this is that it greatly facilitates matters if the two
groups get along well with each other and can work together effectively. This is
less an issue than it has been in the past as PC-based databases rival (or exceed)
mainframe performance and mainframe-hosted databases become the exception
rather than the rule.
Keep in mind that performance depends not only on the DBMS and data-
base, but the hardware platform, operating system, and even the network. It may
be necessary to work with network administration or PC administration and help
staff to complete some monitoring tasks. This is especially true if you plan to
run tests that will place a heavy load on network infrastructure that could inter-
fere with the performance of other network applications. These also may be
issues relating to database administration security access. As a database admin-
istrator, you could have unlimited access to the DBMS and any hosted databases,
but still have limited access to operating system resources and utilities.
Monitoring Security
Database administrators keep track of which applications are running in the
database environment. They can track who is accessing the data in the database
