DATA ADMINISTRATION, DATABASE ADMINISTRATION, AND DATA DICTIONARIES - Fundamentals of Database Management Systems - page 279

10.1 T HE D ATA A DMINISTRATOR

YOUR

TURN

T here is no doubt that both the
amount of data that companies hold and the importance
of this data to the companies' bottom lines are continually
increasing. This would seem to make data administrators
more and more important within their companies. Yet data
administration is often seen as a support function that is
a cost to a company with no clearly quantifiable benefit.

Q UESTION :

Develop an argument in favor of dedicating more
resources to data administration even if the benefits
cannot be directly quantified.

DBMS Usage and Security Monitoring
Database administrators keep track of which applications are running in the database
environment and can track who is accessing the data in the database at any moment.
There are software utilities that enable them to perform these functions. Monitoring
the users of the database environment is really done from several perspectives.
One is the issue of security: making sure that only authorized personnel access
the data. This includes instructing the system to allow new users to access the
database, as ordered by data administration personnel in conjunction with the data
owners. Another perspective is the need to maintain records on the amount of
use by various users of the database. This can have implications for future load
balancing and performance optimizing work, and may also be used in allocating
system costs among the various users and applications. And a related concern is
database auditing. Even assuming that only authorized users have accessed the
database, accounting and error correction require that a record be kept of who has
accessed and who has modified which data items. Incidentally, if the data auditing
function is to be done, the tool that lets it be accomplished is a journal or log similar
to the one used for backup and recovery. Depending on the nature of the auditing,
this journal or log may have to record all simple data accesses, as well as all data
modifications.

Data Dictionary Operations
The database administration group is responsible for the operational aspects, as
opposed to the planning aspects, of the data dictionary, to be discussed shortly,
and any other metadata tools. It also provides dictionary access to other personnel

• DBMS performance monitoring
• DBMS troubleshooting
• DBMS usage and security monitoring
• Data dictionary operations
• DBMS data and software maintenance
• Database design

F IGURE 10.3
The responsibilities of database
administration