During a presentation at Oracle headquarters in Redwood Shores, in which Oracle CTO and chairman Larry Ellison unveiled the company’s latest Autonomous Database Cloud Service, Oracle Autonomous Transaction Processing, he also sought to alleviate concerns that database automation will eliminate the jobs of longstanding Oracle database administrators (DBAs). “I have got some bad news for you: No early retirement,” he said.
According to Ellison, database automation benefits DBAs by allowing them to focus on getting more value from data. Developers also become more agile by using databases that require no manual tuning. Integrated machine learning algorithms enable the development of applications that perform real-time predictions, such as personalized shopping and fraud detection, and the simplicity of upgrading existing databases to the autonomous cloud enables IT to transform to a modern, agile cloud model.
The autonomous database eliminates the administration of systems, OS, storage, and networks; and eliminates database maintenance drudgery giving DBAS more time to work with developers to architect, design, and model applications, get more value from data, and implement more projects, according to Ellison.
By automating away the monotonous work, DBAs will be able to focus instead on the mission, which is to get the most out of their data and build new applications for customers, said Ellison. And, by not having human beings doing the routine work of running the database, companies eliminate human labor and human error and the system becomes much safer, more reliable and more secure, he noted.
“A lot of the tedious things you were doing—allocating disk storage and upgrading the OS—you don’t have to do. However, there is a lot more to do. You will be able to work with the developers to create new applications, improve analytics, and do a better job with data design. CIOs are called chief information officers because they are trying to get the most out of their companies’ data,” said Ellison. “DBAs should be marching in exactly the same direction and trying to maximize the value of the data, create more applications, improve the analytics, and improve the insights available to the company on the data. They shouldn’t just be patching the operating system. They shouldn’t just be adding more storage.”
Furthermore, said Ellison, developers who are not database experts now can use the Oracle database. Because developers will not be dependent on a database experts to set the database up for them they can get started right way. Developers can instantly create and use autonomous databases, eliminating dependence and delays of waiting for others to provide servers, storage, and databases. Moreover, the system eliminates database tuning while automatically adapting changing workloads. “This makes developers and IT organizations dramatically more productive,” he said.
For more information, go to https://cloud.oracle.com/tryit and www.oracle.com/us/corporate/events/think-autonomous/index.html.