Ensuring Optimal Database Performance in the New Cloud World
Today, data management environments are highly complex and often span multiple vendors with deployments across on-premise data centers, clouds, and hybrid installations. In addition to the heterogeneity of systems, the processes surrounding database development and management have also changed. DevOps, a methodology for data scientists, developers, database administrators (DBAs) and others to participate in an Agile workflow, puts a premium on speed and also means that DBAs do not wield the firm control they did in the past.
Amidst those shifts, there is also greater need for stellar database performance due to the greater emphasis on real-time responses. As database environments are evolving, so is the job of DBAs. The movement to the cloud—along with more automation of tasks typically associated with the DBA role—has led to some speculation that organizations may need fewer DBAs, but, so far that does not appear to be true, according to a recent Unisphere research study, According to more than 60% of the respondents, the number of people with the title “DBA” is holding steady, while around 20% say the number of people with in that role is actually increasing. What is happening, however, with the greater diversity of platforms and methodologies is that data professionals’ lives are becoming more difficult.
Recently, Patrick O’Keeffe, Quest Software VP of Engineering, discussed how DBAs’ jobs are changing and what is needed to ensure optimal database performance.
How has cloud changed the role of database administrators (DBAs)? The cloud has changed the role of the DBA in a numberof ways. It has added a level of complexity. DBAs used to beresponsible for only a small number of servers on hardware.Then along came virtualized environments that took away hardware concerns, but added others. At the same time, the number of databases a single DBA needed to manage was growing. Cloud has just added to the responsibility mix—it is yet another environment in which DBAs have to managerisk as data stewards.
The cloud has also brought along new technologies for the DBA to master. Relational databases have been with us for some time, but the cloud has added database-as-a-service approaches for traditional RDBMSs as well as NoSQL offerings both in the transactional and analytics spaces. Lastly, the cloud has also ushered in new approaches to software development. Businesses want higher velocity at lower risk—this is the fundamental driver of DevOps cultures built on top of continued integration/continuous delivery [CI/CD] and Agile. The cloud both enables and tacitly mandates this culture—and configuration-as-code is de rigueur here. DBAs as data stewards have been slower to climb on board this train.
What are the issues with cloud that become more complex or easier? The cloud takes away some issues and adds others. Take, for example, an organization adopting a platform-as-a-service offering. Things like OS patching and backups, to some degree, cease to be concerns, while data governance, security, and privacy start to become even more critical.
How is DevOps changing the DBA role? DevOps is about putting creators and risk managers onthe same team, and this itself is new for DBAs from an organizational perspective.
