What is your definition of the database administrator?

What is your definition of database administrator?
Ben Kubisek, 2017 / 09 / 05
Today, we have a guest who is engaged in editorial work called Steve's trip to the UK.

Ok, I know the simple answer is the database administrator, but what is its role? What do you say if you have to describe it as a non-technical person? DBAs can have many different roles and functions. Some of the roles or features I've seen: installing SQL Server, managing server performance including disk space utilization, backup management, access control and user permissions and roles, managing replication and always/multiple failover clustering and performance tuning/ Indexing, SQL work, alerts, database mail, release database scripts. I think these can be called core DBA responsibilities.

I have also seen that some DBAs have some other responsibilities that depend on the size of the company you work on. These can be multiple database developers such as creating tables, views, functions, and stored procedures. Or something more important in the data architect world, such as database design, schemas, table normalization, keys, and indexes. Sometimes, a DBA that a DBA might manage to extract data from a database (generate a high-performance data integration solution). Other times, they may need to do some reports that may use SSRS or other reporting tools. As you get more into the BI environment, there may be data warehouses and ETL packages to manage. I am sure that I have not been able to become a DBA because there is still a missing aspect.

In my previous work, I was hired as a .NET developer and also worked on database development. It is a very small store and I am the most experienced of the database. Before I knew it, I was installing SQL Server, setting up backups and managing SQL Server performance, and so on. I spent nine years working on this job, and about two-thirds of the work is done for the DBA, database architect, or database developer for the company or client I work for. No one really asked me to do this, I just put it in when I saw the need.

Some people now plan to do minimal work at work. They just want to slide down the radar. These people, when they are DBAs, may be qualified for work. The database server is running, etc., but this is not the DBA I want to define. I think that defining a good DBA is a person who is willing and ready to invest and exceed his job description. They are managing their core responsibilities, but are also willing to help with some of the other aspects mentioned above that can be considered DBA work. They are not afraid to learn new things. They are team members who want to see the project success, they are willing to roll up their sleeves and soil their hands in the process.

What is your definition of the database administrator?