It may be "widgets" that are stored in the database, but as long as the company is in the business of making them, or selling them, and thus tracking those sales, then the DBA's responsibility of maintaining that data, backing it up, and always making it available to everyone else in the company, and the IRS as well, than the role of the DBA cannot be minimized or under-estimated. A company's data is its life blood. Bottom line. Regardless of what content that data is. If it's not available or accurate on a daily basis see how fast the company's business comes to a halt. What do think would happen in this country if all the DBA's were unionized and went out on strike? Think that would be a little worse than a baseball or football strike? Like a mentor of mine once said "I don't care what data you are tracking, but make it unavailable for just 15 minutes and see how many angry phone calls you get." As long as this is the case, the DBA will always be one of the most important individuals in your company whether you want to realize it or not. 🙂