The Importance of Hiring a Skilled DBA

In this information age, data makes the world go round. And as the need for data integrity and security increases so does the need to hire a skilled database administrator (DBA).

However, many business owners are still reluctant to hire a database administrator. To many, hiring a DBA is costly and doesn’t seem justifiable. I mean, why hire a DBA when a Windows admin can install SQL server and grant permissions with just a few clicks?

While hiring a DBA may be a little expensive, the benefits by far outweigh the costs. And any company serious about data and database management should consider hiring a DBA. Here are a few reasons why you should hire a skilled DBA for your business.

1. Best Practices for Your Database

Database administrators are professionals in database management systems. By hiring a skilled DBA, you’re ensuring your database is in line with industry best practices.

A skilled DBA will know the right settings and configurations that your system needs for optimal performance. They will analyze your database and deploy performance boosts that you’d otherwise not get from the ordinary IT guy. Database administrators understand why best practices matter and will work relentlessly to ensure your business follows them.

2. Performance Monitoring

Monitoring databases for performance issues is one of the core duties of database administrators. From time to time servers may develop performance issues such as slow response times, SQL server index fragmentation, and more.

A skilled DBA should be able to identify these issues beforehand, and where necessary, perform SQL server performance tuning to determine the cause of the observed server issues and implement the necessary changes to optimize the server performance.

If some part of the system is slowing down processing, a skilled DBA may need to effect some changes to the system configurations or add additional hardware. An experienced database administrator will also have in-depth knowledge of all the essential tools for DBAs that are required to fix various performance issues and maintain a healthy database.

3. Enhanced Security

When you use an unqualified database administrator, you not only put your data at risk but may also face serious repercussions down the line. These may come in the form of:

A decline in employee motivation and productivity
Corruption that may lead to irreversible data mangling
Unplanned downtime that may slow down processes

A far as data loss is concerned, a breach in security could cost you thousands of dollars in lost data not to forget the reputational damages. However, hiring a DBA may help to enhance the security of your system.

A professional DBA will know the potential weaknesses of your database software and will strive to implement the best practices to minimize the risks. Furthermore, in the event of data leaks, the DBA can consult audit logs to determine the culprit.

4. Disaster Prevention & Recovery

Finally, a skilled DBA will devise clever ways to prevent system failures and possible recovery solutions. They’re aware of all the known disaster scenarios as well as practices that might subject your database to security breaches. That’s because they have done database recovery before and have probably dealt with corruption, strange errors, and common failure scenarios.

Now that you know the importance of hiring an experienced database administrator, why not hire one for your business?