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 What to do on first day of SQL DBA job?

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VictorDBA
Starting Member

8 Posts

Posted - 2008-10-22 : 17:10:56
Dear friends,

Can someone please guide me with things to do on first day of a SQL DBA job? Is there any DBA Best practices to follow, like questions to ask when you are the only DBA on the team, things to monitor, security, ensuring backups, automate tasks and so on!

Also is there a daily, weekly, monthly - DBA things to do list, i can use as a roadmap?

hanbingl
Aged Yak Warrior

652 Posts

Posted - 2008-10-22 : 17:28:42
[code]DBA Responsibilities

(1) Creates and maintains all databases required for development, testing,
education and production usage.

(2) Performs the capacity planning required to create and maintain the
databases. The DBA works closely with system administration staff because
computers often have applications or tools on them in addition to the Oracle
Databases.

(3) Performs ongoing tuning of the database instances.

(4) Install new versions of the Oracle RDBMS and its tools and any other tools
that access the Oracle database.

(5) Plans and implements backup and recovery of the Oracle database.

(6) Controls migrations of programs, database changes, reference data changes
and menu changes through the development life cycle.

(7) Implements and enforces security for all of the Oracle Databases.

(8) Performs database re-organisations as required to assist performance and
ensure maximum uptime of the database.

(9) Puts standards in place to ensure that all application design and code is
produced with proper integrity, security and performance. The DBA will perform
reviews on the design and code frequently to ensure the site standards are
being adhered to.

(10) Evaluates releases of Oracle and its tools, and third party products to
ensure that the site is running the products that are most appropriate.
Planning is also performed by the DBA, along with the application developers
and System administrators, to ensure that any new product usage or release
upgrade takes place with minimal impact.

(11) Provides technical support to application development teams. This is
usually in the form of a help desk. The DBA is usually the point of contact
for Oracle Corporation.

(12) Enforces and maintains database contraints to ensure integrity of the
database.

(13) Administers all database objects, including tables, clusters, indexes,
views, sequences, packages and procedures.

(14) Assists with impact analysis of any changes made to the database objects.

(15) Troubleshoots with problems regarding the databases, applications and
development tools.

(16) Create new database users as required.

(17) Manage sharing of resources amongst applications.

(18) The DBA has ultimate responsibility for the physical database design.



The DBA should posses the following skills

(1) A good knowledge of the operating system(s)

(2) A good knowledge of physical database design

(3) Ability to perform both Oracle and also operating system performance
monitoring and the necessary adjustments.

(4) Be able to provide a strategic database direction for the organisation.

(5) Excellent knowledge of Oracle backup and recovery scenarios.

(6) Good skills in all Oracle tools.

(7) A good knowledge of Oracle security management.

(8) A good knowledge of how Oracle acquires and manages resources.

(9) Sound knowledge of the applications at your site.

(10) Experience and knowledge in migrating code, database changes, data and
menus through the various stages of the development life cycle.

(11) A good knowledge of the way Oracle enforces data integrity.

(12) A sound knowledge of both database and program code performance tuning.

(13) A DBA should possess a sound understanding of the business.

(14) A DBA should have sound communication skills with management, development
teams, vendors, systems administrators and other related service providers.

[/code]
Copyright notice
This document is protected under international copyright law, and all copyrights are reserved by the author (O'Reilly and Associates). Any reproduction of this document without the consent of the author(s) is strictly prohibited.
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VictorDBA
Starting Member

8 Posts

Posted - 2008-10-24 : 13:15:56
Thank you hanbingl!

Although your reply is more geared towards Orcale databases, it was still very helpful. I will be working as a MS SQL Server 2000/2005 DBA with some developer duties.
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hanbingl
Aged Yak Warrior

652 Posts

Posted - 2008-10-24 : 13:45:09
DBA routine is different from organization to organization.
This article I found talke about the general DBA routine for sql server admin:

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Career/61535/

This site also has some articles about DBA for beginners.
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VictorDBA
Starting Member

8 Posts

Posted - 2008-10-26 : 15:23:12
Thank you for providing that link, it is something I was looking for, thanks hanbingl!
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