Roles of DA and DBA

Data Administrator (DA) is the mediator on the managerial and policy side and concerned with the data needs and data flows throughout the entire organization [1]. Normally, the reasonably size organization will have a Database Administrator (DBA) to maintain the database for its business processes. He is the mediators who handle the technical side and mainly concerned with the day to day operational aspects of database systems [1].

Here are the details of the roles and responsibilities of DA and DBA [1] [2] [3].

DA

• Specifying data standards across databases.
• Establishing policies for data usage, security, authorization and data flows into and out of the organization.
• Assisting the application development process by identifying data resources in the organization.
• Arbitrating the sharing of data across departments.
• Increasing the return on an organization's data investment.
• Conduct data definition sessions with users.
• Assist Database Administration in creating physical tables from logical models.
• Perform business requirements gathering.
• Identifying and cataloging the data required by business users.
• Producing conceptual and logical data models to accurately depict the relationship among data elements for business processes.
• Creating an enterprise data model that incorporates all of the data used by all of the organization’s business processes.
• Setting data policies for the organization.
• Identifying data owners and stewards.
• Setting standards for control and usage of data.

DBA

• Installing and configuring the DBMS.
• Assisting in the implementation of information systems.
• Monitoring the performance of the database and tuning the DBMS for optimal performance.
• Maintaining documentation including recording all changes to the database and DBMS.
• Ensuring data integrity is maintained and appropriate backups are made.
• Define required parameters for database definition.
• Analyze data volume and space requirements.
• Perform database tuning and parameter enhancements.
• Execute database backups and recoveries.
• Monitor database space requirements.
• Verify integrity of data in databases.
• Coordinate the transformation of logical structures to properly performing physical structures.
• Creating database objects, including databases, tables, views, and program structures.
• Altering the structure of database objects.
• Accessing the system catalog.
• Reading and modifying data in tables.
• Creating and accessing user-defined functions and data types.
• Running stored procedures.
• Starting and stopping databases and associated database objects.
• Setting and modifying DBMS parameters and specifications.
• Running database utilities such as LOAD, RECOVER, and REORG.

Only authorized users should have the access to prevent security breaches and improper data modification. It is the responsibility of the DBA to ensure that data is available only to authorized users by working with the internal security features of the DBMS in the form of SQL GRANT and REVOKE statements, as well as with any group-authorization features of the DBMS. Database security can be enforced by creating the views that can block access to sensitive data for end users as well [3].

The DA and DBA must understand and be capable of implementing any aspect of security that impacts access to databases. The coordination of Data Administration and Database Administration skills, talents, roles and responsibilities will enable an organization to realize the implementation of security. If the DBA and DA do not put the appropriate procedures in place, the final responsibility for the security failure may lie with them.

References

1. http://cisnet.baruch.cuny.edu/holowczak/classes/3400/security/#databaseadmin
2. http://www.tdan.com/i002fe07.htm
3. http://www.dbazine.com/ofinterest/oi-articles/dba-4