Information On Oracle

This chapter presents an overview of the environment and tasks of an Oracle Database administrator (DBA). It also discusses DBA security and how you obtain the necessary administrative privileges.

The following topics are discussed:

Types of Oracle Database Users
Tasks of a Database Administrator
Selecting an Instance with Environment Variables
Identifying Your Oracle Database Software Release
Database Administrator Security and Privileges
Database Administrator Authentication
Creating and Maintaining a Password File
Server Manageability

We will go through with these topics one by one.First we will understand the types of oracle database users.

Types of Oracle Database Users
The types of users and their roles and responsibilities depend on the database site. A small site can have one database administrator who administers the database for application developers and users. A very large site can find it necessary to divide the duties of a database administrator among several people and among several areas of specialization.

This section contains the following topics:

Database Administrators
Security Officers
Network Administrators
Application Developers
Application Administrators
Database Users

Database Administrators

Each database requires at least one database administrator (DBA). An Oracle Database system can be large and can have many users. Therefore, database administration is sometimes not a one-person job, but a job for a group of DBAs who share responsibility.
A database administrator's responsibilities can include the following tasks:
Installing and upgrading the Oracle Database server and application tools
Allocating system storage and planning future storage requirements for the database system
Creating primary database storage structures (tablespaces) after application developers have designed an application

Creating primary objects (tables, views, indexes) once application developers have designed an application
Modifying the database structure, as necessary, from information given by application developers
Enrolling users and maintaining system security
Ensuring compliance with Oracle license agreements
Controlling and monitoring user access to the database
Monitoring and optimizing the performance of the database
Planning for backup and recovery of database information
Maintaining archived data on tape
Backing up and restoring the database
Contacting Oracle for technical support

Security Officers
In some cases, a site assigns one or more security officers to a database. A security officer enrolls users, controls and monitors user access to the database, and maintains system security. As a DBA, you might not be responsible for these duties if your site has a separate security officer. Please refer to Oracle Database Security Guide for information about the duties of security officers.

Network Administrators
Some sites have one or more network administrators. A network administrator, for example, administers Oracle networking products, such as Oracle Net Services. Please refer to Oracle Database Net Services Administrator's Guide for information about the duties of network administrators.
See Also:Part VII, "Distributed Database Management", for information on network administration in a distributed environment

Application Developers
Application developers design and implement database applications. Their responsibilities include the following tasks:
Designing and developing the database application
Designing the database structure for an application
Estimating storage requirements for an application
Specifying modifications of the database structure for an application
Relaying this information to a database administrator
Tuning the application during development
Establishing security measures for an application during development
Application developers can perform some of these tasks in collaboration with DBAs. Please refer to Oracle Database Application Developer's Guide - Fundamentals for information about application development tasks.

Application Administrators
An Oracle Database site can assign one or more application administrators to administer a particular application. Each application can have its own administrator.

Database Users
Database users interact with the database through applications or utilities. A typical user's responsibilities include the following tasks:
Entering, modifying, and deleting data, where permitted
Generating reports from the data

This is it for this part of the section.I will go through the next topic in my next post.