DB ADMIN-DAY9

Database Administrator

The database administrator is the person(s) in control of the DBMS. One goal of DBMS's is to permit centralized control.

Typical responsibilities of the database administrator:

· Scheme definition

· Storage structure and access method definition

· Scheme and physical organization modification

· Granting authorization for data access

· Integrity constraint specification

Database Users

People who interact with the DBMS:

· Application programmers

· Application programmers write application programs in some programming language (called the host language) which permits the use of DML commands

· Typical host languages: C, Cobol with special syntax to separate DML commands from host language commands

· A DML precompiler handles embedded DML commands before the program is compiled

· Application programs are used to ease common or complicated interaction with the DBMS

· Examples: generating paychecks, doing account transfers,

· Sophisticated users: interact with the DBMS using the DML directly. The query processor translates DML commands into commands to the database manager.

· Specialized users: interact with the DBMS in specialized ways:

· CAD

· Expert systems

· Graphical or audio data

· Temporal data

· Naive users: interact with the database through application programs.