BANGALORE, INDIA: Today every organization's functioning revolves around its database. One can't imagine how an organization would even survive without databases, be it any field or industry. Databases form the core and the most critical asset of an organization. Whether it's a manufacturing setup, or a telecom giant, a bank, or a healthcare institute, database are a key component of every enterprise IT?deployment. Whether it's an ERP solution or a CRM, a telecom billing application, or a hospital management system, everything requires a database at the back-end. 

The onus of managing and maintaining the database lies with a DBA or Database Administrator. Believe it or not, the job of a DBA is studded with tons of responsibilities, whether it's for ensuring data security, doing disaster recovery, instance management, performance tuning, instance cloning, or doing a plain old back up  routine  for the database. Moreover, even a software developer or business analyst's functioning is completely linked to the DBA because the database has to be integrated into everything. So in essence, DBAs are considered the linchpins of any IT  project.

Since the number of IT deployments is growing in India, there's obviously tremendous opportunity out there for DBAs. Even in the US, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the demand for DBAs will grow 37% between 2006 and 2016. This is in fact, a much higher growth rate than any other occupation in the IT sector. Another point worth mentioning is that the role of DBAs is not limited to database management anymore. Thanks to a few key emerging trends, DBAs are now coming out of their back-office image and getting involved in organizational planning and implementation decisions.  That's why, the focus of our IT careers section this time is on DBAs. In this story, we'll talk about growth opportunities for existing DBAs as well as advice for the 'wannabes'.

Relevance for DBA in Enterprise

A  DBA's most important job is to maintain, backup and recover data and to ensure that it's available at all times. This job is crucial for mission critical systems like banks and financial institutions where loss of data is just not affordable. The simplest example would be if a bank isn't able to access a customers' balance because the database is down. A DBA needs to ensure both availability and security of the data all the time. He or she has to make policies for data integrity and also maintain backups or distributed replicated databases so that the organization's productivity isn't hampered due to failures. The duties or roles that a DBA performs for an organization apart from those mentioned above can be summed up as follows:

Database Implementation & Design: The DBA is responsible for a well-designed and implemented database that will help in maximizing performance, and give opportunity for scalability, flexibility and above all reliability. For this the DBA must be conversant with the installation and upgrades issues and also having the business knowledge of the domain will help in structuring the optimized databases.

Database Monitoring: As the size of a database becomes larger and larger, the DBA has to ensure that the database continues to remain fast and responsive. They have to eliminate bottlenecks that slow down database transactions. They also have to monitor the state of the database for occurrence of errors and take pre-emptive measures to avoid them from happening. For monitoring, now DBAs have many administrative tools available with them.

Data Security: To ensure that the enterprise's data is secured, the DBAs have to design rigorous security policies involving the data as well as users accessing that data. This involves assigning users to databases and determining the proper security policies for every user. Being in-sync with developers: The DBAs have to work in tandem with developers for an application project, so that the software application performs in an optimized manner with the database. It's always a plus for a DBA to have knowledge of software programming and development lifecycle, so that he can identify the areas where the data calls from the application to the database can be performed in efficient manner.


In the next part of the series we'll be talking on the career path for the DBAs and new opportunities that lie ahead for them. You can also check the complete story on PCQuest's July '08 issue in IT Careers section.