Roles in Database Development Whose role is it primarily to determine the requirements and produce the database design specifications before implementation begins?

Introduction:
Successful database projects rely on clear role separation. This question checks whether you can identify who leads requirements analysis and design versus who is responsible for day-to-day operations and tuning.

Given Data / Assumptions:

• Multiple roles contribute across the project life cycle.
• Only one role is primarily tasked with gathering requirements and creating design specifications.
• Other roles provide implementation, administration, and platform stewardship.

Concept / Approach:
Database analysts (sometimes called data analysts, data modelers, or business analysts with data focus) interact with stakeholders to elicit requirements, define entities and relationships, and produce conceptual and logical models. Database administrators (DBAs) implement the design, manage security, backups, and performance, and handle operational reliability. System architects define broader system structures, interfaces, and non-functional requirements, but database requirements and design are chiefly within the analyst’s remit.

Step-by-Step Solution:
1) Identify who meets users and translates business needs into data requirements.2) Recognize that analysts produce the conceptual/logical models and specifications.3) Understand that DBAs focus on physical design choices, deployment, and operations.4) Conclude analysts are primarily responsible for requirements and design documentation.

Verification / Alternative check:
Standard role descriptions in database management literature place requirements gathering and design with analysts/modelers, while DBAs handle implementation and administration.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:

• Database administrators: Emphasis on operations, security, and performance after design.
• Both A and B: Collaboration exists, but the lead responsibility lies with analysts.
• Neither A nor B: False; analysts clearly own this phase.
• System architects: Broader system view, not specific database design ownership.

Common Pitfalls:
Assuming that because DBAs are “database” experts, they also own requirements. In practice, gathering and modeling are analyst-driven.

Final Answer:
Database analysts