ONGOING MAINTENANCE AND GROWTH - Database Design and Development: An Essential Guide for IT Professionals - page 516

CHAPTER 17

ONGOING MAINTENANCE AND GROWTH

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

• Understand the critical need for ongoing maintenance of the database system
• Note the routine maintenance activities that must continue
• Examine the importance of regular database backups and recovery procedures
• Study how continuous monitoring and gathering of statistics take place
• Appreciate how performance monitoring enables provision for growth
• Review the use of benchmarks and how these help assess the status of the
database system
• Note the various aspects of growth and enhancements in a database
environment
• Comprehend the significance of performance tuning
• Learn how to tune the various components of a database system

Let us say that you are part of the project team implementing a database system
for your company. Perhaps you are the database administrator. The project team
has worked through the database development project cycle from planning through
implementation and deployment of the database system. The project is successful,
and the system is up and running. Everyone is happy; the project team and the DBA
can now stop working on the database system. Is this not true?
From Chapter 14 on database administration, you definitely know that the
database development life cycle does not simply terminate as soon as you deploy
your database system. Maintenance activities just get started at that point and
continue as long as the database system is in operation. The database administra-