Database Administration
Chapter 8
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Database Administration
Database administration (DBA) is an
organization group responsible for supervising
both the database and use of DBMS.
DBA:
* formulates DB policies,
* communicates policies to users, and
* enforces these policies.
2011 FOSTER School of Business Acctg. 420
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Database Administration
The DBA must be able to communicate with all
levels of users. They need to protect the
integrity and the security of the database.
Universities are required to have disaster
planning policies in place as part of the IT
strategic plan.
2011 FOSTER School of Business Acctg. 420
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Policies
 Access Privileges—who needs access to what, why?
 Security—encryption, views, authentication,
authorizations.
 Disaster Planning—duplicate back-up system,
recovery: forward (use back-up copy & log after
image), backward (use log before image). UPS
 Archiving—how long should we keep our data (live
versus archive)? Move from live to archive storage.
live (online)  archive (offline)  disposal or
 mass storage in data warehouse.
2011 FOSTER School of Business Acctg. 420
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Archiving (continued)
Data retention is affected by legal requirements
(complicated and expensive):
SOX (2002) – financial records
Patriot Act (2001) – customers and accounts at
financial institutions.
SEC rule 17a-4 – electronic communications.
DoD 5015.2 Standard (1997) – data mgt. req.s
HIPAA (1996) – health-care transactions.
2011 FOSTER School of Business Acctg. 420
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Other DBA Functions
 DBMS Evaluation & Selection
 DBMS Maintenance: responsible for changer &
updates.
 Data Dictionary Mgmt.
 Training
 DB Design
 Testing
 Performance Tuning: change DB design to improve
performance.
2011 FOSTER School of Business Acctg. 420
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DBMS Evaluation & Selection
(see Fig. 8-8 in text)
When a new system is purchased, the DBA must
evaluate each prospective purchase against a
list of requirements (e.g., Fig. 8-8).
The checklist will include specifics re: data definition, data
restructuring, nonprocedural languages, data dictionary,
concurrent update, backup & recovery, security, integrity,
replication & distributed DBs, limitations, documentation &
training, vendor support, performance, portability, cost, and
special requirements.
2011 FOSTER School of Business Acctg. 420
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DBMS Maintenance
DBA:
decides on updates,
coordinates people when problems occur,
decides and coordinates user’s special
requests.
2011 FOSTER School of Business Acctg. 420
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Data Dictionary Mgmt
Depending on the DBMS, DBA creates data
definitions, updates contents, creates &
distributes reports.
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Training
DBA responsible for training.
Expensive but essential.
2011 FOSTER School of Business Acctg. 420
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DB Design
DBA does the physical-level design of the DB.
Controls documentation standards for all steps.
Controls all changes.
2011 FOSTER School of Business Acctg. 420
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Testing
Production (live) system: hardware, software,
and database for users.
Test (sandbox) system: where programmers
create a separate (new) system. After the new
system is developed, tested and approved, it is
transferred to production system.
2011 FOSTER School of Business Acctg. 420
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Performance Tuning
Performance = ability of the system to serve
users in a timely and responsive way.
DBA must get the best performance from
available funds.
Improve performance by buying faster: network,
software, disks, & hardware.
When funds are constrained, then DBA will
change DB design to improve performance –
this is called tuning the DB design.
2011 FOSTER School of Business Acctg. 420
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Tuning
A few of the DB changes that a DBA can make
to tune the system include:
* Modifying indexes—create and delete.
Can speed up searching and joining tables.
Tables with many indexes take longer to update.
* Splitting tables—could increase overall performance.
-sometimes done for security (could use views)
* Changing table designs—cost/benefit to denormalize tables.
Sometimes users change their data needs and the DB may have to be
changed to efficiently address the current need.
3NF  2NF or 1NF (This can increase performance for certain types of transactions, depends on
users needs.)
2011 FOSTER School of Business Acctg. 420
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Quick Quiz
1) A(n) _____ specifies the ongoing and emergency
actions and procedures required to ensure data
availability, even if a disaster occurs.
2) _____ is the prevention of unauthorized access,
either intentional or accidental, to a database.
3) In ordinary usage, a(n) _____ is a place where
public records and documents are kept.
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