Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Managing Software
Database administration personnel will be involved with a wide range of data
and software maintenance activities. The degree of involvement depends on how
the IS department is organized. These activities include installing new versions
of the DBMS, installing fixes or patches (corrections) to the DBMS, performing
backup and recovery operations, and performing any other tasks related to
repairing or upgrading the DBMS or the database. One potential concern, which
must be coordinated with network and system administrators, is permissions.
The database administrator might not have sufficient permissions to install fixes.
It may be necessary to either give the database administrator additional permis-
sions or have a network administrator perform the installations.
Operating system patches and service packs are also an issue, but tradition-
ally not a database administration responsibility. Operating system updates are
more often the responsibility of computer support personnel or network admin-
istrators. Network administrators and database administrators usually work
together to determine which updates need to be applied and scheduling the activ-
ities. Current Windows operating system versions are often configured so that
most updates are applied automatically, without any administrator interaction.
One particular data maintenance activity is modifying the database struc-
tures as tables are modified and new tables are inevitably added. This is fun-
damentally an issue of database design, which means it also involves data
administration.
Managing the Physical Database
A database administrator must understand not only how data is organized, but
how the physical database (and database objects) is organized. In the mix of cen-
tralized and decentralized IS environments that exist today, there is a wide range
of database administration responsibilities relating to database design. For the
shared, central databases, database administrators are responsible for physical
database design. They may also either be responsible for or be a participant in
logical database design. Logical design, however, must be coordinated with data
administrators.
Notice that responsibility for physical database design is consistent with per-
sonnel's expertise in the features (and idiosyncrasies!) of the DBMS in use and
with his or her overall responsibility for the performance of the DBMS environ-
ment. For decentralized databases on LAN servers or even on PCs, the database
administrator's role in database design might be that of a consultant who is called
in on request.
Managing Troubleshooting
Inevitably, failures will occur for reasons ranging from a bug in the application
code to a hardware or system software failure. The question is, who do the users
