Even the best DevOps initiatives can fall victim to data bottlenecks, from challenges provisioning data quickly and easily, to synchronizing application and database changes and, in some cases, a serious lack of cooperation between developers and database administrators.
The speed and flexibility requirements of DevOps and modern applications overall can be difficult to achieve in the world of data management with its rigid schemas, manual processes and data silos.
DBTA recently held a roundtable webinar with Corey Brune, manager, solution architecture, Delphix; Matthias Zieger, pre-sales engineer, Central Europe, DACH, and Eastern Europe, Digital.ai; and Grant Fritchey, Microsoft Data Platform MVP and DevOps advocate, Redgate, who discussed key technologies and strategies for bridging the gap between data management and DevOps.
Enterprise data drives business innovation initiatives, Brune said. Enterprise data fuels technology innovation initiatives. Speed and scale of data delivery is critical in these endeavors and is a recurring bottleneck, he explained.
The status quo consists of a patchwork of point solutions and manual processes. However, there is a better way. The Delphix DataOps platform combines enterprise wide data coverage with data compliance, Brune explained. The platform provides automated, self-service access to a test data library along with securing data management in the delivery pipeline.
Database DevOps/DB automation is still an obstacle for many teams across the industry, Zieger said. In a lot of cases DBs are still not part of the CI/CD pipeline(s) because DBs are statefull by definition, data integrity is hard to solve, staging data development to production, and test data generation.
What is needed is the reduction of time from development to production by combining database deployment/release automation. Companies should also align DB deployments with app deployments in all stages and Validate database changes, Zieger said.
The Digital.ai Value Stream platform enables users to orchestrate software delivery across tools and teams, with security and compliance built in, according to Zieger. The platform can standardize the release process; reduce risk; deliver status tracking; run on any application, anywhere; offers end-to-end visibility; use existing tools; scale the enterprise; and is efficient for developers.
According to Fritchey, to fix database deployments, adopt development methods. Put the database in source control, he explained. Organizations should build a database Continuous Integration process. Putting the database into Continuous Delivery offers benefits such as:
- Faster deployments
- Enhanced safety of production
- More testing
- Scaled support
- Better compliance
An archived on-demand replay of this webinar is available here.