How DBAs can take on a more strategic role

Not that long ago, database administrators (DBAs) were perceived as purely technical experts. While they played a critical enterprise role, it was primarily behind-the-scenes to ensure the integrity, security, and availability of the database.

Today, DBAs are being pulled into the limelight. Corporate data is gold, and DBAs are its stewards. That’s reflected in employment statistics for database administrators and architects, positions projected to grow nine percent from 2023 to 2033, much faster than the average for all occupations.¹

Data is likewise growing at an exponential rate. In fact, according to IDC, data creation and replication are experiencing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23% per year.² As data volumes grow, so does corporate hunger to use it for broader business goals such as user experience design and insights for revenue generation.

Complicating the issue is the fact that a majority of data (80% to 90%, according to multiple analyst estimates) is unstructured.³ Modern DBAs must now navigate a landscape where data resides across increasingly diverse environments, including relational databases, NoSQL, and data lakes. And they must work cross-functionally to facilitate data integration so the business can ultimately extract gold from all that data driving new business opportunities.

But while DBAs have moved into a strategic advisory capacity, they’re not off the hook for all their other traditional responsibilities. If anything, it’s been an expansion, and now they must try to balance it all.

So, the question becomes: how do enterprises help their DBAs unburden themselves so they can truly focus on strategy?

The third-party effect

One strategy is to work with a trusted third-party provider that can offer comprehensive support and expertise. Such a partner can help DBAs free themselves of traditional, time-consuming administrative activities and reinvest that time and their companies’ resources for broader business strategy.  

Rimini Street, for example, has been providing enterprise software and database support for the past 20 years to thousands of enterprise customers. Rimini Support™ provides primary engineering support with 24/7 availability and average response times of under two minutes for critical P1 and P2 issues. Its accessibility at scale to support mission-critical operations removes costs and helps ease the burden on stretched resources.

For iconic food manufacturer Welch’s, the move from vendor support for their Oracle Database to Rimini Street enabled their teams to reallocate their focus towards the creation of new application extensions for the business rather than working on troubleshooting.

“Welch’s is a great example of a company that faced out-of-control maintenance costs, with forced upgrade pressures that offered no new features and functions to justify the trouble and expense,” says Robert Freeman, Rimini Street’s Oracle Enterprise Architect. “With Rimini Street, Welch’s immediately cut maintenance fees in half and their DBAs are no longer chasing trouble tickets, applying patches, or worrying about the risks associated with upgrades. They are now much more in control of their IT roadmap.”

As DBAs continue to take on more of a consultative role within their organizations, they can benefit from third-party support solutions to bring efficiency to their day-to-day. Such solutions will enable them to move out of the daily grind and into the modern, multifaceted role companies need them to play.  

Learn more about how Rimini Street enterprise software support services can help free critical time and resources for business-driven innovation.

¹Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Database Administrators and Architects

²Business Wire, “Data Creation and Replication Will Grow at a Faster Rate Than Installed Storage Capacity, According to the IDC Global DataSphere and StorageSphere Forecasts,” March 24, 2021

³MIT Sloan School of Management, “Tapping the power of unstructured data,” Feb 1, 2021