The reason that this blog is short is that I don’t consider myself qualified to instruct others in the Data Administration function. I will state that after twenty years of working as DBA, I can perform the basic functions fairly well when I need to. The intent of this blog is to provide readers with a launching point to start their education and stress the importance of effective data resource management.

I use the title “Data Administrator” loosely to describe the functions these IT specialists provide. I use it for clarity only in this blog because I think it oversimplifies the important role they play. Data Administrators are more aptly titled “Protectors of the organization’s key data assets.” From establishing proper naming conventions to ensuring a common language is used to implementing corporate-wide data management policies, the services they provide range the spectrum. I could easily spend the rest of this year’s blog expanding upon the services they perform and still do them an injustice.

Data administrators view data from the business perspective and must have an understanding of the business to be truly effective. Their expertise allows them to define, describe, organize and categorize data. DAs build models of the data that are a based upon data entity relationships and the business rules that govern them. Data administrators provide the framework that allows disparate business units within an organization to share timely and accurate data. The end result is: higher quality data = better business decisions. Enough said.

Because folks in this profession must understand the business itself to perform their duties, I have never met a DA that didn’t know more about the overall business than any one else in the organization. That includes the business personnel that were responsible for providing that service. You know what surprised me the most after watching a DA interview business unit personnel about data meaning and business rules and processes? How much more that businessperson learned about the service they were providing to their internal and/or external customers.

As a result, if I were a CIO and I wanted to learn more about a particular business function my organization provides, I would include the Data Administrator in the list of people I needed to talk to. No doubt about it.

I have had the good fortune of working with many excellent Data Administrators during my career. I made every effort to learn as much as I could from them. Rebecca Duffy and Jim McQuade come to mind when I think about top-notch Data Administrators that have made an impact on me. I have also had the good fortune of working with Craig Mullins who I feel is one of the few database experts that firmly understands the Data Administration function.

The greatest positive impact I think these folks had upon me was that they were the conduits that allowed me to understand and appreciate the benefits that high quality data driven design provides. They taught me the importance of their chosen profession.

Like all DBAs, I know that the key to creating a high quality database environment is to build it upon a firm foundation. A foundation that consists of a well-designed hardware platform and an operating system and database that were tailored and configured for high performance, high availability and protection against unauthorized access.

I came to understand that high quality data driven design, led by a competent Knowledge Management Worker (Data Administrator to simplify) was the foundation for an application that was easily administered, easily changed, less error prone, needed less rework to add new functionality, and the list goes on and on and on….

Because Data Administration maps the business rules into constraints that can be enforced by the database and turns raw data into information stored in tables, the Data Administrator acts as the intermediary between the business and Database Administration units.

You can plop me down into any database and within 15 minutes I will be able to tell you if the application objects and business rules were designed by someone who understood Data Administration best practices. Since I work for a Remote DBA Services provider, I am provided with that opportunity on a daily basis. When I assess a new customer’s database here at Remote DBA Experts, one of the items on my assessment document is adherence to Data Administration best practices. When I see poor naming conventions, the same piece of data named 10 different ways and stored using every different data type Oracle provides, I immediately begin to become highly concerned about the quality of the rest of the database ecosystem (hardware platform, O/S, database, application). I also know that we are in for a lot of complex data changes in the future.

All this being said, the data administration role, although important, is often undefined in many IT organizations. The smaller the shop, the more prevalent this becomes. Those responsibilities, by default, are usually awarded to the shop’s database administration unit.

If you are employed at an organization that does not have a full-time Data Administration unit, the first question you need to ask is why not? Here’s my two cents. Any organization that is large enough to employ a staff of DBAs, operating system administrators, network engineers and application developers is being shortsighted if it doesn’t have a full service Data Administration Unit.

We previously learned that the services a DA provides ranges the spectrum. As a DBA/DA, the scope of services you can provide will be severely limited by time constraints and knowledge. Most of your time will be spent understanding the Data Modeling process as opposed to defining enterprise-wide information frameworks. You must have the basic understanding of how data is modeled and the logical to physical transformation process. Your responsibilities will require that you work closely with the business folks and application developers. This must be a team effort.

There are dozens of data modeling tools to help you perform the data modeling process. Personally, I am a neophyte Erwin user. Here’s a web page with a more comprehensive listing.  Expand the selection list and you’ll find a bunch of articles to choose from.

I fully understand that small shops can’t afford to employ a full time Data Administrator. So what happens if you are the “chosen one” to perform these services for your organization?

Here’s my quick-start listing:

Realize that the data administration function you are providing is just as important as any database administration service you can perform. You need to spend as much time, if not more, learning this trade. Even if it is only a part-time responsibility, it is a highly important part.

Don’t allow yourself to become overwhelmed. As with anything, start by learning the basics. I’ll provide some resources later in this blog to jumpstart you.

Understand that this topic is complex. I have run across few Data Administrators that didn’t have a passion for their job and weren’t highly intelligent. They will also speak a different language than you do. My first meeting with Jim McQuade started at the same intellectual level and ended by him slowly saying “DO…. YOU….. UNDERSTAND…?” after each sentence. I shook my head in several different directions and said “NOOOO.” But I kept trying and kept learning from him.

You need to learn the basics. Start by beginning to understand the Data Modeling process: normalization, naming conventions, entity relationships, business rules. The book I often refer to is Data Modeling Essentials: Third Edition by Graeme C.Simsion and Graham Witt. An introductory book (Data Admin 101) I think highly of is Data Modeling Made Simple: A Practical Guide for Business & Information Technology Professionals by Steve Hoberman.

Sign up for DAMA and attend their conferences. As I stated previously, start with the basic presentations.

Spend dedicated time on the The Data Administrator Newsletter website. This is the FIRST site I would go to. I can’t stress this recommendation highly enough. The folks that contribute to this site are top notch. While you are on that site, go to the Book Center page and read some of their reviews.

Many of my personal Data Administration books are outdated, so I hope that once word gets about about this blog, real DAs will chime in too.

The key to your success is to start with the basics and understand that there is much to learn before you can perform the DBA/basic DA functions.

Thanks for Reading,

Chris Foot
Oracle Ace
Director Of Service Delivery