Many companies have been focusing on AI this year as new technologies and solutions have emerged that promise to leave organizations in the dust if they aren’t paying attention. Behind all the wonders that AI brings, however, is the workhorse that must be attended behind the scenes—databases and associated data environments.
Data needs to be secure, highly available, and viable for AI and other advanced initiatives to succeed within enterprises.
A recent survey of data executives and managers identified these factors as many of their top-of-mind concerns, all well as actions they are taking to build data-driven capabilities in their enterprises. The survey of 217 companies was conducted by Unisphere Research, a division of Information Today, Inc., in partnership with Dell EMC, among members of the Quest Oracle Community.
More than two-thirds of data managers, 67%, agree that the amount of time, money, and resources spent on ongoing database management—versus new project development or new initiatives—is affecting the competitiveness of organizations.
Security tops the lists of costliest and most time-consuming operational activities. Along with security, maintaining uptime and performance are considered the three costliest database management activities from an operational standpoint.
Data managers are increasingly turning to abstraction strategies and technologies to manage data environments better and more cost-effectively. The leading strategy being undertaken to mitigate time devoted to administrative overhead is virtualization or cloud solutions, which is occurring at half (50%) of respondents’ sites. Another 37% are adopting Database-as-a-Service options, while 31% employ Infrastructure-as-a- Service.
To ensure business continuity in case of a major failure—such as a ransomware attack—backing up data is the key. The most oft-cited solution is replication of data to an offsite data center or partner location, cited by 46%. It’s also notable that public cloud is now the second-ranked backup choice—25% now look to public clouds as backup sites for their data.
When looking to purchase new database systems and other infrastructures, performance and cost matter the most. Close to 60% cite performance as the driving factor for their purchasing decisions or recommendations. Another 54% seek to keep costs down, while close to half are concerned with the reliability of their infantries. Performance, cost, and reliability also ranked as the top three considerations in last year’s survey.
The survey report authored by Unisphere lead analyst Joe McKendrick, is available for download now.