3 Review(s)

What skills set the database administrator (DBA) apart from other technologists? Of the many responsibilities laid upon a DBA, which cannot be performed by someone else? Adding database accounts? Creating tables and indexes? Installing and configuring databases? Optimizing the database and the applications that access and manipulate it? All of these things are regularly performed by people who do not consider themselves database administrators. They consider themselves to be programmer/analysts, to be application developers, to be managers and directors, and they do all these things just to be able to move forward with their own job. Most application developers know how to run the Oracle Universal Installer—it’s just another graphical application, and these days accepting all the default choices is a perfectly valid way to get the job done. Adding database accounts? That’s easy! Granting database privileges? Just give ’em “DBA” or “SYSDBA” and no more problems! Creating tables and indexes? C’mon, that’s more of a developer’s job than the DBA’s job, isn’t it? Tuning Oracle databases is mostly about crafting efficient SQL statements, and while this job often falls to DBAs, it is best handled by the developers and programmers who write the SQL in the first place.