Re: DBA Responsibilities... who owns the database?

Mike Oswald <moswald_at_mitec.net> wrote:

>Okay... so we are going around and around... I came from the
>Applications world and still do some development to support the DBA's
>using Oracle*Forms. But recently the Apps Director insisted that his
>Developers play/be the DBA's in an Oracle instance that we have setup
>for them (for testing).
>
>They seem to think it is okay to have the SYSTEM/SYS account password(s)
>and that they should be adding datafiles!
>
>So what is the general feeling out there? Your comments would be
>appreciated!
>
>Should the Apps Developers stay out of the SYSTEM / SYS accounts? I/we
>don't have a problem with the Developers creating tables/synonyms/etc...
>but to control the whole instance? Hmmmm!!!
>
>-Mike
>

As both a DBA and an Application developer, I am reluctantly in agreement with limitations on Developer control of the database...In our setup, we have development,test, and production environments  ( like many enterprise shops) and it is only the development environment - and to a more limited extent, the test one, ( and only a particular instance in those environments ) that I, as developer, have many permissions on - at those do not include DBA-level rights....
As much as I like anarchy,( I would have been one, but they wouldn't let me be in charge ), in a large, multi-system,multi-user environment there are many very good reasons for centralized control of DBA access to the enterprise data resources...Most large organizations use an Information Resource Model to standardize entities,attributes and other common, standardized aspects of the data resource ( using some form of repository ) and must enforce certain rules for usage and modification and to avoid the 'unintended consequences' of perfectly valid actions.

Just my 2c worth,
John Greco
MnDOT Human Resource Office
Email to john.greco_at_dot.state.mn.us Received on Wed Jun 03 1998 - 09:20:36 CDT