A comparative analysis of changing DBA functions in several environments

The field of Information Technology (IT) has seen dynamic but steady changes over the past decade. Centralized processing platforms have been challenged by the influx of decentralized platforms, especially the client/server topology. One area that is recently gaining attention is database design and support, particularly the role of the database administration in the changing IT processing landscape. Questions have been raised in the literature on whether or not the Database Administrator (DBA) has a role in supporting applications in decentralized platforms similar to that in centralized environment. The purpose of this study is two-fold. The first part is to investigate what role the DBA has played in the IT centralized environment, and how that role has changed to accommodate the distributed nature of the client/server processing platform. The second part of the study is to investigate how DBA effectiveness may be influenced in the emerging client/server platform by adopting an object-based support approach rather than the traditional task-based approach used in centralized environment. The study explored several aspects of the DBA functions, and included reviews of what the practitioners deemed important as the critical factors that made this IT position important to the enterprise.; Using the questionnaire method, over one hundred and fifty database administrators from both environments participated in the study, providing input into what they considered critical in their role as DBA, and in their specific environments. Database functions including security management, transaction management, application tuning, database application design, transparency management, data recovery, and technical support were included in the study. All subjects who participated in the study were screened to assure that only a relevant population of practicing DBAs with over five years of experience using each platform was included. Each DBA was given a standard questionnaire including specific quantifiable questions on their rating of each of the ten functions studied. These answers were recorded, tabulated, summarized, analyzed and then interpreted.; The evaluation of the data from the questionnaire results showed that in answer to the first purpose of the study, the DBA roles between the two platforms are indeed different. Also, the study revealed that the use of a task-based DBA support method in decentralized environment is less effective than utilization of an object-based approach whereby database objects are the focus of the DBA responsibilities across the network and within the entire enterprise. This finding is significant in the sense that it will help designers of DBA support tools to focus on the right design framework and pragmatically deliver more usable tools for effective database administration in the client/server environment.