Database Administration

Database Administration

Rarely approach as a management discipline

Implies a plan and an implementation according to the plan development and design of database strategies, monitoring and improving database performance and capacity planning for future expansion requirements implement security measures to safeguard the database

Includes the following:

Reactive vs Proactive DB Administration

Reactive

More like a fire fighters

Attempts to solve problems only after they occur Focused on resolving the problem at hand

Proactive

Implements practices and procedures to avoid problems before they occur Implements a strategic blueprint for deploying DBs

Data Administration

Separates the business aspect of data resource management from the technology used to manage the data Understanding business lexicon and translating it to a logical model

Data Administrator

Identifying and cataloging the data required by business users Producing accurate conceptual data model that depicts relationship among data elements Creating a data enterprise model Setting data policies of the organization Identifying data owners and stewards Setting standards for control and usage of data

DA vs DBA

DBA

Ensures that an organizations data are useful, available and reliable/correct Performance and Tuning

Performance and Tuning

workload, throughput, resources, optimization and contention

Workload online transactions, batch jobs, ad hoc queries, analytical queries Throughput capability of the computer HW & SW to process data Optimization analysis of database requests with query cost formulas to generate efficient access paths Contention the condition at which two or more components of the workload are attempting to use a single resource in a conflicting way

Performance and Tuning

Database Performance

Optimization of resource usage to increase throughput and minimize contention enabling the largest possible workload to be processed

An effective performance monitoring and tuning requires not just DBMS expertise but knowledge outside the scope of DB admin Handling performance is an enterprise endeavor

Availability

Keeping the DBMS up and running

Vigilant monitoring used to warn DBMS outages and the need for corrective action DBA needs to a design a DB so that it can be maintained with minimal disruptions

Minimizing the amount of downtime to perform administrative tasks

The faster the DBA performs admin tasks the faster the more data becomes available

Availability

Utilities are provided while to analyze the database while application read and write from it Clustering technologies provide failover techniques that reduces downtime

Database Security & Authorization

Only authorized programmers and users should have access

It is the responsibility of the DBA that only authorized users have access to it

Internal security features of the DBMS GRANT & REVOKE Group authorization features

Database Security

Actions that needed to be secured:

Creation of DB objects tables, views etc. Altering structure of DB objects Accessing the system catalog Reading & modifying data in tables Creating & accessing user-defined functions Running stored procedures Starting and stopping databases

Back-up and Recovery

Majority of recoveries today resulted from software and human error Hardware failure is not as prevalent as they used to be

80% of errors are due to software and human factors

The DBA must be prepared to recover data at any usable point, no matter what the cause, and to do it as quickly as possible

Back-up and Recovery

Recover to current

DB is brought back to its current state before the failure occurred Application level problem Removes all transactions since a specified point in time
Effects of specific transactions during a specified timeframe are removed from the DB Application recovery

Point-in-time recovery

Transaction Recovery

Back-up and Recovery

What should the DBA do?

Develop a back-up strategy to ensure that data is not lost in the event of an error

Applicable to DB processing

Procedures shroud be in place to keep data synchronized & accurate

Staffs involved in DB Administration

System DBA Database Architect Database Modeler Application DBA Data Warehouse Administrator

System DBA
Focuses on technical rather than business issues Installing new DBMS versions & applying maintenance fixes Setting & tuning system parameters Tuning the OS, network & processors to work w/ DBMS Interfacing with other technologies required by the database applications

Database Architect

For design and implementation of new databases

Not involved in the maintenance; in new design only Skills required for designing new databases are different from those that are required to keep an existing database up and running

Rationale

Database Architect

Creating a logical data model Translating logical models to physical database design Implementing efficient databases Analyzing data access to ensure efficient SQL and optimal database design Creating back-up and recovery strategies for new databases

Database Analyst

Junior DBA Sometimes his role is similar to the database architect Sometimes referred to also as the data administrator

Database Modeler

Collecting data requirements for development projects Analyzing data requirements Designing project-based and conceptual data models Creating and updating corporate data model Ensuring that DBA has sound understanding of the data models

Application DBA

Focuses on database design and the support and administration of databases for a specific application Expert in writing and debugging SQL statements

understands the best way to incorporate DB requests into the application program

Application DBA

Data Warehouse Administrator

Monitor and support data warehouse environment

Business intelligence, query & reporting tools Database design for read-only access Data warehousing design issues such as star schema Data transformation and conversion Data quality issues

End of Lecture