Introduction to Database

Administration
SCK2413/ SCD3713
Semester 1 2010/2011

INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS

 Objectives
At the end of the course, students should be able to:
• Describe architecture of at least one DBMS and its
instances.
• Create, start up and shut down a database.
• Manage database storage effectively.
• Create, monitor, and drop database users and groups.
• Back up and recover a database.
• Audit and monitor database activity, including its
locking and performance.
• Tune database management system.

INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS

 Why Learn Database
Administration?

• Data is at the center of today's applications; today's

organizations simply cannot operate without data.
• The better the design and utility of the database, the better
the organization will be positioned to compete for business.
• One of the largest problems faced by IT organizations is
ensuring quality database administration. A survey of IT
managers conducted by Information Week in December
2000 showed that the top two database management
execution issues faced by companies are ease of
administration and availability of qualified administrators.

INSPIRING CREATIVE AND INNOVATIVE MINDS

 Why Learn Database
Administration?

• Both of these issues were cited by 58% of

survey respondents. Additionally, the 1999
Market Compensation Survey conducted
shows that DBA positions take longer to fill
than any other position.
• Clearly, there is no lack of demand for DBA
skills in today's job market.
A good DBA needs to enjoy challenges and be a good
problem solver.
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 What Is a DBA?
• The need for a database administrator is greater today than ever before. Why?

The CIO of Acme Corporation hires a management consulting company

to streamline their information technology (IT) operations. The
consultant, determined to understand the way Acme works, begins by
interviewing the CIO. One of his first questions is: "So, I see that you
have a DBA on staff. What does he do?"
The CIO replies, "Well, I'm told that we need the DBA to make sure our
Oracle databases stay online. I know that some of our critical business
processes like order entry and inventory use Oracle, but I really don't
know what the DBA does. But please don't tell me I need another one,
because we can barely afford to pay the one we have!"
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 Evaluating a DBA Job Offer

• Does the company offer regular training for its DBAs to learn new
DBMS features and functionality? What about training for related
technologies such as programming, networking, e-business, transaction
management, message queuing, and the like?
• Does the company allow DBAs to regularly attend local user groups?
What about annual user groups at remote locations?
• Are there backup DBAs, or will you be the only one on call 24/7?
• Are there data administration and system administration organizations,
or are the DBAs expected to perform all of these duties, too?
• Does the DBA group view its relationship with application development
groups as a partnership? Or is the relationship more antagonistic?
• Are DBAs included in design reviews, budgeting discussions, and other
high-level IT committees and functions?

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 DBA Salaries
• DBAs are well paid, have challenging jobs, and are likely to be
engaged in the most visible and important projects. What's not
to like?
• DBAs are expected to know everything, not just about database
technologies, but about any thing remotely connected to them.
– Database administration is a nonstop job, and DBAs work long
days with lots of overtime, especially when performance is suffering
or development projects are behind schedule.
– DBAs frequently have to work on weekends and holidays to
maintain databases during off-peak hours.
– A DBA must be constantly available to deal with problems, because
database applications run around the clock. Most DBAs carry
pagers or cell phones so they can be reached at any time. If there
is a database problem at 2:00 A.M., the DBA must get out of bed,
clear his head, and solve the problem to get the applications back
up and running.

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 DBA Salaries
– Failure to do so can result in database downtime, and that can completely shut
down business processes.
– DBAs frequently spend weekends in front of the computer performing database
maintenance and reorganizations during off peak hours.
– You can't bring mission-critical databases down during the nine-to-five day to
maintain them.
– According to industry analysts at the META Group, the average DBA works more
than fifty hours per week, including an average of six hours on weekends.

• Database administration is technically challenging and rewarding; it

can also be exhausting and frustrating. But don't let that scare you.
The positive aspects of the job far outweigh the negative. 

Database administration is a nonstop job.

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 Database Technology

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 Database Technology

• A database is an organized store of data wherein the

data is accessible by named data elements.
• DBAs must be experts in the specific DBMS in use,
and there may be many in the organization. For
example, a large organization might use DB2 on the
mainframe, Oracle and Informix on several different
UNIX platforms, and SQL Server on Windows 2000.

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 Database Technology

• The DBA group, therefore, must have expertise in each of these

different management systems and platforms.
• The DBA must be capable of determining which DBMS and platform
is best suited to the needs of each application. This can be a difficult
job fraught with politics and conflicting opinions.
• The DBA group must be able to act impartially and implement
decisions based on the best fit of application, DBMS, and platform.

DBAs must implement decisions based on the best fit of application,

DBMS, and platform.

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 The Management Discipline of
Database Administration

• The DBA is responsible for managing the overall database

environment. Often this includes installing the DBMS and setting
up the IT infrastructure to allow applications to access
databases.
• These tasks need to be completed before any application
programs can be implemented. Ad hoc database access is a
requirement for many organizations.
• A good DBA is integral to the entire application development life
cycle. The DBA is "in demand" for his knowledge of data and
the way in which data is managed by modern applications.

A good DBA is integral to the entire

application development life cycle.
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 Database, Data, and System
Administration

• Many organizations combine data administration into the

database administration role.
• Data Administration: A high-level function that is responsible
for the overall management of data resources in an
organization, including maintaining corporate-wide definitions
and standards
• Database Administration: A technical function that is
responsible for physical database design and for dealing with
technical issues such as security enforcement, database
performance, and backup and recovery
• System Administration: The SA is responsible for the
installation and setup of the DBMS. The SA typically has no
responsibility for database design and support. Instead, the
DBA is responsible for the databases and the SA is responsible
for DBMS installation, modification, and support.

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 Database, Data, and System
Administration

DBA vs. DA

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DA, DBA, and SA
responsibilities

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 Evolving Approaches to Data
Administration

• Data administration and database

administration practises that can be made at
each stage of the traditional database
development life cycle:
– Database planning
– Database analysis
– Database design
– Database implementation
– Operation and maintenance
– Growth and change

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 DBA Tasks
• Ensuring that an organization's data and databases are useful,
usable, available, and correct requires the DBA to perform a variety
of tasks in a variety of areas.

– database design  A poor relational design can result in poor

performance.
– performance monitoring and tuning
– database availability  Ensuring database availability is a
multifaceted process.
– security and authorization
– backup and recovery  The majority of recoveries today occur as a
result of application software error and human error.
– data integrity  physical, semantic, and internal.
– release migration  The task of keeping the DBMS running and up-
to- date is an ongoing effort that will consume many DBA cycles.

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 Types of DBAs
• System DBA
– Focuses on technical rather than business issues, primarily in the system
administration area.
– Physical installation & performance of DBMS

• Installing new DBMS versions and applying maintenance fixes supplied by the
DBMS vendor
• Setting and tuning system parameters
• Tuning the operating system, network, and transaction processors to work with
the DBMS
• Ensuring appropriate storage for the DBMS
• Enabling the DBMS to work with storage devices and storage management
software
• Interfacing with any other technologies required by database applications
• Installing third-party DBA tools
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 Types of DBAs
• Database Architect
– The database architect is involved in new design and development work only.

• Creating a logical data model (if no DA or data modeler position exists)

• Translating logical data models into physical database designs
• Implementing efficient databases, including specifying physical
characteristics, designing efficient indexes, and mapping database
objects to physical storage devices
• Analyzing data access and modification requirements to ensure
efficient SQL and optimal database design
• Creating backup and recovery strategies for new databases

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 Types of DBAs

• Database Analyst
– There is really no set definition for this position.
– Sometimes junior DBAs are referred to as database
analysts.
– Sometimes a database analyst performs a role similar to that
of the database architect.
– Sometimes the data administrator is referred to as the
database analyst or perhaps as the data analyst.
– Sometimes a database analyst is just another term used by
some companies instead of database administrator.

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 Types of DBAs
• Data Modeler
– A data modeler is usually responsible for a
subset of the DA's responsibilities.
• Collecting data requirements for development projects
• Analyzing the data requirements
• Designing project-based conceptual and logical data
models
• Creating and updating a corporate data model
• Ensuring that the DBAs have a sound understanding of
the data models
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 Types of DBAs

• Application DBA
– Focuses on database design and the ongoing support and
administration of databases for a specific application or
applications.
– The application DBA is likely to be an expert at writing and
debugging complex SQL and understands the best ways to
incorporate database requests into application programs.
– The application DBA must also be capable of performing database
change management, performance tuning, and most of the other
roles of the DBA.
– The difference is the focus of the application DBA  it is on a
specific subset of applications rather than the overall DBMS
implementation and database environment.

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 Types of DBAs

Focus of the application DBA

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 Types of DBAs
• Data Warehouse Administrator
– Must be capable DBAs, but with a thorough understanding of the differences between a database
that supports OLTP and a data warehouse.

• Business intelligence, query, and reporting tools

• Database design for read-only access
• Data warehousing design issues such as star schema
• Data warehousing technologies such as OLAP (including ROLAP,
MOLAP, and HOLAP)
• Data transformation and conversion
• Data quality issues
• Data formats for loading and unloading of data
• Middleware
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 Staffing Considerations

• How Many DBAs?

– One of the most difficult things to determine is the optimal number of DBAs
required to keep an organization's databases online and operating efficiently.
– Determining how many DBAs is optimal is not a precise science. It depends on
many factors:

• Number of databases • Performance requirements

• Size of the databases • Type of Applications
• Number of users • DBA staff experience
• Number of applications • Programming staff experience
• Service-level agreements (SLAs) • End user experience
• Availability requirements • Variety of DBMSs
• Impact of downtime • DBA tools
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 DBA Reporting Structures

• To whom should the DBA group report? Different companies have taken different approaches to
the DBA reporting structure, but a few reporting hierarchies are quite common.
Typical DBA reporting structure

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 DBA Reporting Structures

Application DBA reporting

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 DBA Reporting Structures

Recommended Data Resource Management

(DRM) reporting structure
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 New Technology and the DBA

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 New Technology and the DBA

• The Internet: From DBA to e-DBA

– Companies of every size are using Internet technologies to
speed up business processes. Indeed, e-business has
evolved as a new term to describe the transformation of key
business processes using Internet technologies.
– E-businesses must be able to adapt and react to constant
change.
– An e-DBA is a DBA who is capable of managing Web-based
applications and their Internet-related issues.
– The e-DBA must be capable of navigating this complex,
heterogeneous infrastructure and providing expertise
wherever databases interact within this infrastructure.

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 New Technology and the DBA

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 New Technology and the DBA

• Many factors impact database administration when you

couple the Internet with database technology.
– 24/7 data availability
– New technologies such as Java and XML
– Web connectivity
– Integration of legacy data with Web-based applications
– Database and application architecture
– Web-based administration
– Performance engineering for the Internet
– Unpredictable workload
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 New Technology and the DBA

• The PDA DBA

– Personal digital assistant devices, better known as PDAs, are fast becoming
a necessity for modern executives and businessmen.
– The general idea is to store a small amount of critical data on the PDA in a
database; the local PDA database is later synchronized to long-term data
stores on enterprise database servers.
– All major DBMS vendors provide small-footprint versions of their flagship
products to run on PDAs  IBM markets DB2 Everyplace, Oracle sells
Oracle8i Lite, and Sybase offers Adaptive Server Anywhere.

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