As data continues to proliferate within organizations, many companies are looking for more efficient methods to enable storage and analysis. According to a recent survey by Unisphere Research, conducted in partnership with the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG) and sponsored by VMware and EMC, more than two-thirds of the 338 respondents indicate that the number of Oracle databases they manage is expanding.
The increasing size and complexity of database environments is straining IT resources at many organizations, reducing their agility, and increasing the costs and challenges of maintaining the performance and availability of their systems. To address these concerns, many IT departments are looking for ways to automate routine tasks and free up assets. The use of virtualization to help accomplish these goals is well known, and similarly, the adoption of cloud services is becoming more commonplace, especially private clouds.
A recent DBTA webcast reviewed the research findings presented in the report, “The Empowered Database: 2014 Enterprise Platform Decisions Survey,” and explored the key issues, priorities and solutions being adopted by Oracle customers. The webcast featured Unisphere Research analyst Joe McKendrick, IOUG director Mark Farnham, VMware vExpert Don Sullivan, and EMC director Jason Kotsaftis.
The growth of data is one of the toughest problems that many companies are tackling. In particular, the two biggest issues for the respondents to the Unisphere survey were licensing costs, and hardware and network costs. One of the top goals is to lower those costs.
One method of addressing the cost of data growth is virtualization. More than 50% of respondents to the Unisphere survey employ virtualization within their IT Infrastructures. Some of the top benefits of virtualization that cited are reduced cost, standardized infrastructure, and consolidation. Although, the use of virtualization hasn’t had a noticeable impact on the delivery of long-term projects, companies leveraging virtualization are more likely to report turning around short-term projects faster. Virtualized companies are in a better position to turn projects around in a matter of days.
The presenters pointed out that although the increasing use of virtualization and cloud, may cause IT staff members to be concerned that it could have a negative impact on their job stability and employment opportunities, that has not been the case. The majority of DBAs are reporting that while cloud and virtualization are reducing the more traditional activities they are involved with, overall, their roles are actually growing and expanding.
To access an on-demand replay of the webcast, “Straight Talk about Virtualizing Your Oracle Databases and Moving to the Cloud,” go here.