Below are the topics every Administrator has to keep up with.
Backup / Restore:
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Understand the backup / restore options SQL Server provides for you.
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Implement those on your databases to meet your users’ needs.
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Test those backups regularly to make sure they are good and to give you an idea of how long the restores take.
Configuration / Performance (OS):
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Understand the various types of RAID and how those can impact your performance.
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Understand how to deploy SQL Server on those RAID configurations to meet cost vs. performance.
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Understand how to measure performance on your SQL Servers (CPU, memory, disk I/O).
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Understand what can cause bottlenecks on those areas.
Configuration / Performance (SQL Server):
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Understand clustered vs. non-clustered indexes and what situations to apply them.
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Understand statistics and how to keep them up to date.
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Understand how to determine when indexes are needed and when they’re not.
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Understand how to deploy database and log files to maximize the performance of the disk.
Growth / Capacity Planning:
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Understand how to measure the growth of your databases.
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Understand how to forecast growth over time.
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Understand how to communicate your growth needs to management before it’s critical.
Security (SQL Server):
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Understand the difference between users/logins
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Understand how to determine what permissions a login has, down into each database.
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Understand ownership chaining.
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Understand how to get a user the rights that are needed, no more and no less.
Disaster recovery:
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Know how to fix corruption
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Know what to do when someone drops a table (though if you’ve done the security right, that shouldn’t be possible)
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Know how to restore to any point given your backup strategy
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Practice various scenarios so that if something does happen, you know exactly what to do.
Update (2017/06/19):
This article is awesome.