In a company's cloud data program, a database administrator implements backups, encryption and access controls as directed by policy, while a business analyst defines data quality rules, maintains metadata and ensures the data is used appropriately. Which roles do they hold?

Data roles divide responsibility for information. The data owner is accountable for the data, decides its classification and who may access it and approves its use. The data custodian is responsible for the technical safekeeping of data in line with the owner's decisions and policy, implementing controls such as backups, encryption, access enforcement and storage maintenance; a database administrator is the typical custodian. The data steward focuses on the content and context of the data, managing data quality, definitions, metadata and appropriate use on behalf of the business, which is the analyst's role here. Reversing the two assigns quality and metadata governance to the person running backups and technical controls to the person defining business rules, which inverts both definitions. Calling the administrator the owner gives a technical operator authority over classification and access decisions that belongs to the business, and calling the analyst a processor borrows a privacy law term for a party acting on behalf of a controller, usually an external organization. Labeling the administrator a controller misuses a privacy role tied to determining purposes and means of processing. Exam caveat: in cloud, the provider often performs custodial functions for infrastructure, but accountability stays with the owner. Operational check: confirm a RACI records owner, custodian and steward for each critical data set.