An SQL database administrator (DBA) is a person assigned a sysdbauth record in the database. SQL DBAs have access to all meta data and data in the database. To support internal schema caching, every OpenEdge database begins with a DBA defined as "sysprogress." However, OpenEdge restricts the use of "sysprogress."

When you create an OpenEdge database using the PROCOPY or PRODB commands, and the database does not have any _User records defined (from the source database, for example), then a DBA is automatically designated with the login ID of the person who creates the database. This person can log into the database and use the GRANT statement to designate additional SQL DBAs, and use the CREATE USER and DROP USER statements to add and delete user IDs. When creating users, this DBA can also specify users as SQL-only users, who can only access the database through SQL.