Actors on the Scene
For a small personal database, such as the list of addresses discussed
in Previous Section , one person typically defines, constructs, and manipulates the
database, and there is no sharing. However, in large organizations, many people
are involved in the design, use, and maintenance of a large database with
hundreds of users. In this section we identify the people whose jobs involve
the day-to-day use of a large database; we call them the actors on the scene. In Section 1.5 we consider people who may be
called workers behind the scene—those
who work to maintain the database system environment but who are not actively
interested in the database contents as part of their daily job.
1. Database
Administrators
In any organization where many people use the same resources, there is a
need for a chief administrator to oversee and manage these resources. In a
database environment, the primary resource is the database itself, and the
secondary resource is the DBMS and related software. Administering these
resources is the responsibility of the database
administrator (DBA). The DBA is responsible for authorizing access to the
database, coordinating and monitoring its use, and acquiring software and
hardware resources as needed. The DBA is accountable for problems such as
secu-rity breaches and poor system response time. In large organizations, the
DBA is assisted by a staff that carries out these functions.
2. Database Designers
Database designers are responsible for identifying the data to be stored in the data-base
and for choosing appropriate structures to represent and store this data. These
tasks are mostly undertaken before the database is actually implemented and
popu-lated with data. It is the responsibility of database designers to
communicate with all prospective database users in order to understand their
requirements and to cre-ate a design that meets these requirements. In many
cases, the designers are on the staff of the DBA and may be assigned other
staff responsibilities after the database design is completed. Database
designers typically interact with each potential group of users and develop views of the database that meet the
data and processing requirements of these groups. Each view is then analyzed
and integrated with the views of
other user groups. The final database design must be capable of supporting the
requirements of all user groups.
3. End Users
End users are the people whose jobs require access to the database for querying, updating, and generating reports; the
database primarily exists for their use. There are several categories of end
users:
Casual end users occasionally access the database,
but they may need different information each time. They use a sophisticated
database query language to specify their requests and are typically middle- or
high-level managers or other occasional browsers.
Naive or parametric end users make up a sizable portion of database end users. Their main job function
revolves around constantly querying and updating the database, using standard
types of queries and updates—called canned
transactions—that have been carefully programmed and tested. The tasks that such users perform are
varied:
Bank tellers check account balances and post withdrawals and deposits.
Reservation agents for airlines, hotels, and car rental companies check
availability for a given request and make reservations.
Employees at receiving stations for shipping companies enter package
identifications via bar codes and descriptive information through buttons to
update a central database of received and in-transit packages.
Sophisticated end users include
engineers, scientists, business analysts, and others who thoroughly familiarize themselves with the facilities
of the DBMS in order to implement their own applications to meet their complex
requirements.
Standalone users maintain personal databases by
using ready-made pro-gram packages that provide easy-to-use menu-based or
graphics-based interfaces. An example is the user of a tax package that stores
a variety of personal financial data for tax purposes.
A typical DBMS provides multiple facilities to access a database. Naive
end users need to learn very little about the facilities provided by the DBMS;
they simply have to understand the user interfaces of the standard transactions
designed and implemented for their use. Casual users learn only a few
facilities that they may use repeatedly. Sophisticated users try to learn most
of the DBMS facilities in order to achieve their complex requirements.
Standalone users typically become very proficient in using a specific software
package.
4. System Analysts and
Application Programmers
(Software Engineers)
System analysts determine the requirements of end users, especially naive and parametric end users, and develop
specifications for standard canned transactions that meet these requirements. Application programmers implement these
specifi-cations as programs; then they test, debug, document, and maintain
these canned transactions. Such analysts and programmers—commonly referred to
as software developers or software
engineers—should be familiar with the full range of capabilities provided by the DBMS to accomplish their tasks.
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