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ADBA will need to make many different types of changes to a database over its lifetime. Some will be simple and easy to implement, others much more difficult and complex. The SQL ALTER statement can be used to make many types of changes to databases. However, other types of changes may require additional steps to implement. It is the DBA's job to understand the best way to implement any type of database change. Keep in mind that simple changes often become more difficult in the real world. For example, a simple database change is not quite so simple when it needs to be propagated to multiple databases on different servers at multiple locations.
Many types of database object alteration cannot be performed using the basic SQL ALTER statement. As usual, this varies from DBMS to DBMS and, indeed, from version to version of a single DBMS. Actions that are most likely to not be supported by ALTER include changing the name of a database object (depending upon the DBMS and version, some objects can be renamed using the RENAME statement), moving a database object to another database, changing the number of table space partitions or data files, removing a partition from...