DATA ADMINISTRATION, DATABASE ADMINISTRATION, AND DATA DICTIONARIES - Fundamentals of Database Management Systems - page 277

training in database concepts, database standards, how to write DBMS calls in their
programs, possibly how to do database design, how to use the data dictionary to
their advantage, and in general, what services they can expect to be provided by
data and database administration.
Arbitration of Disputes and Usage Authorization
To introduce this heading, we should spend a moment on the question of data
''ownership.'' Who in a company ''owns'' a piece of data or a database? To be
technical, since data is a resource of value to the company, the data ''belongs to''
the company's owners or stockholders. But in practical terms, in many companies
data is controlled by its user or primary user. In this case, data and database
administration act as ''custodians'' of the data in the sense of providing security,
backup, performance monitoring, and other such services. In some companies with
extensive data sharing, ownership responsibility actually falls to data administration
itself.
If ownership has been established and a new application requires the use of
existing data, then it is the job of data administration to act as an intermediary and
approach the owner of the data with the request for data sharing. This can also
happen if someone in the company simply wants to query someone else's database.
If there is a dispute over such data sharing, then the data administration group acts as
an arbitrator between the disagreeing parties. Incidentally, the data administration
group may also find itself acting as arbitrator between two database users who are
sharing the same CPU and vying for better performance.
Documentation and Publicity
Using the data dictionary as its primary tool, the data management function is
responsible for documenting the data environment. This documentation includes a
description of the data and the databases, plus programs, reports, and which people
have access to these items. A more complete list of such metadata items will be
given later in this chapter in discussing data dictionaries.
As a related issue, the data management group should perform a publicity
function, informing potential users of what data already exists in the database.
Knowing what data exists might encourage employees to think about how they can
use the company's data to gain competitive advantages that did not previously exist.
They may discover how to automate more of their work and how to integrate their
work more directly with related business processes that are already automated.
Data's Competitive Advantage
Earlier, we talked about the idea of data providing a competitive advantage for
the company. Another point is that data administrators, through their knowledge of
the company's data and how it flows from one company function to another, are
in a unique position to understand how the company ''works.'' This is especially
true since virtually all company functions today are dependent on information
systems. Combining these two concepts, a very important and very high-profile
responsibility of the data administration function is to respond to questions about
how the company's business procedures can be adjusted or modified to improve its