Database Administrator – Infrastructure & Disaster Recovery

JOB OBJECTIVE\:

The Database Administrator, Infrastructure & Disaster Recovery is responsible for administering, maintaining, monitoring and securing the organisation’s enterprise database environments to ensure their availability, performance, integrity and recoverability. The Database Administrator manages database backup, restoration, high-availability and disaster-recovery arrangements, supports database upgrades and lifecycle activities, and coordinates with relevant technical teams to maintain reliable and resilient database services.

KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES\:

Core Functional Responsibilities & Subject Matter Expertise

Database Administration and Maintenance

● Install, configure, administer, patch and upgrade approved enterprise database platforms across on-premises and selected cloud-hosted environments.

● Manage database instances, schemas, storage allocation, system parameters, transaction logs, connectivity and database-level objects.

● Perform routine database health checks, integrity checks, index maintenance, statistics updates and operational housekeeping.

● Maintain accurate database inventories, configuration records, technical dependencies and operating procedures.

● Support database migrations, upgrades, consolidation and platform-modernisation initiatives.

Performance and Capacity Management

● Monitor database availability, performance, workload, resource utilisation and storage growth.

● Investigate query-performance issues, locking, blocking, deadlocks, connection problems and recurring database bottlenecks.

● Analyse execution plans and recommend appropriate query, indexing, schema or database-configuration improvements.

● Maintain performance baselines for critical databases and forecast database compute, memory, storage and connection-capacity requirements.

● Coordinate infrastructure-capacity requirements with the relevant Systems, Storage and Cloud teams.

Backup, Restoration and Recovery

● Configure and maintain database backup and recovery arrangements in accordance with database criticality, retention requirements and approved Recovery Time Objectives and Recovery Point Objectives.

● Administer database-native backup, restoration and point-in-time recovery processes, and integrate databases with the approved enterprise backup platform.

● Monitor backup activities, investigate failures and ensure that identified backup or recoverability gaps are resolved.

● Conduct scheduled restoration and recovery tests and validate the availability, integrity and consistency of restored databases.

● Maintain backup schedules, recovery records and evidence of restoration and recovery testing.

High Availability and Disaster Recovery

● Configure, administer and monitor approved database high-availability, replication and disaster-recovery technologies.

● Monitor database replication, synchronisation, availability and failover readiness, and investigate related technical issues.

● Maintain database failover, failback, restoration and recovery procedures for critical database services.

● Participate in planned database switchovers, failover tests and disaster-recovery exercises.

● Validate database availability, integrity, connectivity, scheduled processing and replication following recovery.

● Measure recovery results against approved Recovery Time Objectives and Recovery Point Objectives and recommend improvements where gaps are identified.

● Coordinate database recovery activities and dependencies with Infrastructure, Applications, Network, Backup and Cybersecurity teams.

Database Security and Access

● Apply approved database-security standards, secure configuration baselines and least-privilege access controls.

● Administer database users, roles, privileged accounts, service accounts and database-level permissions.

● Support periodic access reviews, vulnerability assessments, security patching and audit-evidence requirements.

● Configure approved database auditing, logging and encryption controls in coordination with Cybersecurity.

● Identify and escalate unsupported components, excessive privileges and material database-security risks.

Change, Automation and Lifecycle Management

● Review and implement database changes through the approved change-management process, including implementation, validation, rollback and recovery arrangements.

● Develop and maintain scripts to automate routine database monitoring, maintenance, backup validation and reporting activities.

● Maintain database scripts and configuration files within approved version-control repositories.

● Monitor database platform support lifecycles and plan required patching, upgrades, migrations or retirement activities.

● Identify database technical debt and recommend appropriate upgrade, consolidation, migration or modernisation actions.

Incident and Operational Support

● Investigate and resolve database availability, connectivity, performance, corruption, replication and recovery incidents.

● Conduct technical root-cause analysis for significant or recurring database incidents and implement corrective actions within the assigned scope.

● Restore database services in accordance with approved operational priorities and recovery procedures.

● Prepare database health, performance, capacity, backup and recovery-readiness reports.

● Participate in on-call or emergency technical-support arrangements where required.