So you’ve hired a stellar database administrator and now you feel like you can go on about your day, letting him or her worry about taking care of your IT issues.
But is there anything you can do to help them work more efficiently? After all, your business is your baby, and you want to make sure that all your bases are covered when it comes to protecting your data.
Lo and behold, there is; and those of us lovely people at Soaring Eagle Database Consulting are here to provide you with a couple of practical guidelines:
Provide Them With All the Information They Need
As a business owner, your database is your golden egg. That thing breaks, and you can make a list of Top 10 Reasons to Panic. So give your DBA all the details of your business needs. Does data need to be available on a 24/7 basis? Do you need to constantly scale? Are you having SQL issues? Having all this information will also help you hire a DBA with the specific skill sets you need.
Pay Attention to Language in the Service Level Agreement
What works for some businesses doesn’t necessarily work for others. If you want your DBA to know what you consider to be a reasonable amount of time for SQL queries or any other type of transaction to come up, include it in the SLA. If you want your DBA to know that it is absolutely imperative that you have access to your data 90% of the time (to give, say, 10% of the time of downtime for maintenance or troubleshooting), include it in the Service Level Agreement. Same goes for budgeting for recovery efforts, and which issues are included within the scope of the agreement.
Train Staff on How to Use the Database
You can hire the Michael Phelps of database administration, but if your staff makes a mistake, it will all be an exercise in futility. Cybersecurity doesn’t start and end at your computers. It begins with the moment a person steps into your office: Who has access to come in in the first place? Can a visitor see your receptionist’s screen? Does your receptionist even need access to confidential information? If so, have you trained him or her to log out every time they step away from their desk? Getting everyone on board is essential to ensure that your business data is secure.
Test Everything on a Regular Basis
JFK once said that the time to repair a roof is when the sun is shining. By the same token, all recovery plans should be tested regularly while everything’s fine and dandy at the office.
At Soaring Eagle Consulting we pride ourselves on knowing about dba management like the back of our hands. No matter what your business needs, we’ve got you covered. Contact us and talk about what we can do for you.
