Database Administrator roles & responsibilities - difference in opinion
I have been asked about Database Administrator roles and responsibilities many times and also seen in forums/newsgroups. In a nutshell DBA is responsible for all sorts of database within the organisation. This might vary for the management of Enterprise network systems where you will find batch of junior DBAs, 3rd level support and other support area based teams. Also the Senior most DBA will have the additional responsibility to manage the team of DBAs too. Such type of dividend is required for the database activities taking place in the database environment and will be able to better manage database request being made with the proper assignment of tasks to individuals based on work load and priority of tasks being performed for the purpose of producing a database environment that has a high level of data integrity, available databases, security, and high-performing databases.
So the questions what kind of duties can be delegated to junior DBAs or database support personnel?
Basically differntiating the Human Resource based and technical resource based management will be helpful for the DBAs specificall to concentrate on the day to day issues within the environment. As someone needs to be responsible for managing people within the team in addition to creating, setting up and reviewing backup stratgies. Other database support personnel including Junior DBAs should concentrate on getting handson with technical expertise and review the feedback from the senior personnel within the team. Dividing the Infrastructure tasks such as setup of SQL Server along with user databases and helping with development is useful. This will reduce the overhead in the Support that are purely responsible for the production servers, backup, security etc.
The team's responsibility such as any changes anything on a production server must be tested with an assessment of the impact. The Senior DBA needs to be aware of highly available systems that are no longer a priority and diver the time to concentrate on security, backup or resolve long pending performance issues. Then coming to how much control a Sr. team member need to have over junior people depends on what they are doing and how work is divided. Overall the DBA needs to be technically in charge, even splitting responsiblity be server is dopey. Eg. Senior DBA is total in charge of the main production server and some junior DBA is in charge of a secondary production server housing some minor (non critical) applications. Their needs to be technical consistancy but a manager can still do the HR related work. The manger does the overall long term goal setting. The senior DBA does the day to day task assignments and few days you may leave and one of those junor DBA's needs to be able to step up to a more responsible role. 
As a whole the Database Administrator is responsible for designing, developing and implementing programs, as required, to support the technical capabilities. There is a list of responsibilties as follows:
Responsibilities:
• Develop new or maintain existing databases based on specifications
• Develop, implement and maintain unit tests of database programs (i.e, SQL, etc)
• Share knowledge by effectively documenting work
• Respond quickly and effectively to production & development issues and taking responsibility for seeing those issues through resolution.
• Resolve database performance issues, database capacity issues, replication, and other distributed data issues.
• Design & implement data models and database designs into physical databases.
• Install and maintain database software.
• Manage backup and recovery of databases.
• Manage security of database structures and corporate data held within databases.
• Develop database procedures, triggers and SQL scripts for development teams.
• Maintain database changes from Development, QA to Production.
• Assist in the definition and implementation of database standards.
• Monitor databases for errors and perform problem determination when necessary.
• Design and implement highly available production systems.
Qualifications:
• Bachelor’s degree in technical discipline; or equivalent industry professional experience (essential)
• Experience writing complex SQL, triggers, and procedures
• Ability to work with minimal direction, yet also able to work in team environment.
• Relational database analysis and modeling experience.
• Experience configuring database network connectivity.
• Understanding of database backup and recovery techniques.
• Experience in fast paced production or operational system arena
• Clear and effective written and verbal communication skills
• Hands on and ownership personality..
The debate continues...... |