You may have heard the phrase “data is the new oil. ” In 2017, there was an article in The Economist titled “The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, it’s data” This article primarily focuses on the new giants of the digital age: the forces of Facebook, Google, and Amazon.
But this also applies to the companies we work with. When companies mine information from their systems, they can make more informed decisions and learn things about their products and services that might not have been obvious otherwise. The importance of data creates a responsibility to keep it safe.
At Solve100, we specialize in helping people retrieve data from a variety of data sources and analyze it with tools like Qlik, Power BI, and Tableau.
However, many of these are only possible because the data is stored in and accessible through the database. Yes, we source data from flat files, web services, and other places, but every customer we work with has a database. These databases are located on database servers that need to be managed. Database administrators (DBAs) have many important tasks to handle.  Let’s discuss some of them to explain the importance of database mana

Important aspects of database management

Backup and restore.

Perhaps the most important job of a database administrator is to ensure that the system is recoverable in the event of a failure or data loss.
Most companies assume that their databases are well protected and that these backups can be used wisely in the event of a crisis But often, we find that no one actually tries to restore these backups, and they aren’t as available as we thought. Additionally, we have seen situations where the database server VM is backed up as a complete machine image as part of the backup approach. With the advent of ransomware, proper database backups in addition to server backups can make a huge difference in a company’s ability to protect its data and conduct business. Many of our customers begin performing differential backups during the day and retain backups for longer periods of time. Additionally, some of our customers have implemented a form of geo-redundancy that utilizes the ability to push database changes locally and remotely to his backup server every 15-30 minutes to prevent data loss. Some people have implemented it.

Data Integrity and Security

Backups are a good first line of defense, and databases can be successfully backed up, but there are problems such as data corruption. In addition to ensuring proper backups, it is also important to perform regular data integrity checks to ensure data integrity. Moreover, most of us are aware of the increase in cybersecurity attacks. Ensuring data security is critical, and effective data management policies can help with this. A database system with strict controls on who can access the data in the system helps limit human error that can lead to a successful cyber attack. These access controls include implementing authentication and encryption to ensure the security of sensitive data. We often see database servers where users are granted more privileges than necessary, and if any of these user identities are compromised, the system can be compromised. It is important that users have the appropriate level of privileges only on the databases they need to access.
For example, a report user only needs read permissions and should not have the ability to modify data.

Performance and Productivity

The purpose of a database is to store information. The more information that is added to the database, the more the computer has to sort through the data to return it to the calling application, making it slower for users. Database administrators can analyze database servers to identify slow-running queries, monitor server resources, and look for processes that compete with each other. Database administrators can monitor and make changes to make the system more responsive to end users and increase productivity.

High Availability

High Availability is similar to backup and recovery, but is more focused on uptime. If a database server fails, it is important to get a new server up and running as soon as possible. For some customers, downtime must be minimized because the database controls the production system and a server failure will stop all work.
Establishing a highly available server environment allows for rapid and automatic failover, making data and systems available to end users.