How to become DBA? (Part - I)

What is DBA?

A database administrator (DBA) is a person responsible for the design, implementation, maintenance, deployment of database systems cloud/on premise and repair of the database or its objects. The main goal of the DBA is to keep the database system up at all times and make it available for only authenticated users. The DBA makes sure that the database is protected and in case of failure data loss is minimal by implementing the high availability or by designing the robust backup/restore (by considering business RPO/RTO) and high availability techniques. DBA is also responsible for performance tuning, upgrade, migration, patching, troubleshooting issues, capacity planning and much more.

Who can be DBA?

I am often getting a question from my blog reader that, I am working as system administrator or software engineer. Can I switch my job as DBA? Here is the answer.

Anyone who has basic database knowledge and strong willingness to be DBA, can be DBA. Please note DBA role is very critical role, database (transaction data) is the heart of any business. You have to be through with the business processes, standards RTO, RPO, SLAs etc.

DBA responsibilities depends on business to business but DBA who has expertise of many database technologies (SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, Maria, PostgreSQL etc.), good understanding of cloud technologies (i.e. AWS RDS, Azure, Google Cloud etc.,) , Operating system (Windows, Linux etc.,) , scripting language (Powershell, Shell, Python etc.,), monitoring tools (Idera, site scope, data dog etc.,), database developments scripts, ETL packages (SSIS Informatica etc.), reporting tool (SSRS, tableau) can have many opportunities and can easily fit any database profile.

Type of DBA

• Administrative DBA
• Development DBA
• Database Architect
• Data warehouse DBA
• Application DBA

 Administration DBA Administration DBAs are the DBA whose primary skill is database administration which involves having depth knowledge of database system, operating system, storage and network. Administration DBA are mainly responsible for installing, configuring, and maintaining database servers. Main tasks are installing, backups, recovery, security, replications, high availability techniques, memory management, configurations, tuning, upgrades, migrations and more...

 Development DBA Works on building queries, stored procedures, functions, triggers, extended stored procedures, scripting (Powershell, Shell, batch, python) etc. that meet business needs. This is the equivalent of the programmer. Primary role is understand the business requirement, write the queries which includes best practices, business naming standards, business internal & external regulations etc.

Database Architect responsible for designing the structure of the database system based on business requirement which includes data modeling, design schemas, tables, constraints, rules, triggers etc. Work to build a structure that meets the business needs in general. This design is then used by developers and development DBAs to implement the actual application.

Data Warehouse DBA is responsible for merging data from multiple sources (includes sources as other databases or different kind of files like ORK, Parquet, CSV, Flat files etc.) into a data warehouse. DW DBA design warehouse, but cleans, standardizes, and scrubs data before loading into warehouse. DW DBA has good knowledge of the best practices on data warehouse systems (SSAS, Redshift, Big Query etc.), business requirements, scripting languages, ETL tools (Informatica, SSIS etc.) and reporting tools (Cognos, Tableau, BIRT, SSRS etc.)

Application DBA acts like a bridge between the application program and the database. Application DBA has very good understanding of the applications and its modules. He makes sure all the application module is optimized to interact with the database. App DBA ensures all the activities from installing, upgrading, and patching, maintaining, backup, recovery to executing the records works without any issues. App DBA has detailed knowledge of the application modules and its related databases and its objects. He is the kind of expert that if any of the application module is not performing well and he can easily relate it to database objects and fix it.