DBTA Readers’ Choice Awards Winners (2021)

The past 18 months have put the need for data-driven insight and agility into sharp focus for many organizations. While this has long been a strong trend, these capabilities became a ne­cessity seemingly overnight to the great benefit of those with the ingenuity and foresight to have planned ahead.

Accelerated digital transformation has been felt in a variety of ways across all industry sectors. The In addition to using data more effec­tively, the ability to streamline processes and move away from man­ual, labor-heavy functions is a boon to many companies and, long-term, the data that is being produced by people and devices is creating a wealth of data to be mined well into the future.

According to IDC’s most recent DataSphere and StorageSphere forecasts, the amount of data created and replicated was unusual­ly high in 2020—64.2ZB. In addition, IDC forecasts that the amount of digital data created over the next 5 years will be greater than twice the amount of data created since the advent of digital stor­age. IDC now forecasts that global data creation and replication will experience a compound annual growth rate of 23% over its 2020–2025 forecast period. Notably, IDC says that IoT data is the fastest-growing data segment, followed by social media, and that enterprise data is growing two times faster than consumer data due to the increasing role of the cloud for storage and consumption.

These vast amounts of data can create the foundation for better decision making, support the identification of new sales and marketing opportunities, offer better insight into customer and employee sentiment, as well as enable greater resilience and flexibility—provided that organizations have the necessary tools and services to leverage this wealth of data.

To support emerging data requirements, enterprises now take advantage of a range of database types and cloud services. The challenge is managing these diverse environments— including security, provisioning, and access—in a centralized fashion, including according to Unisphere Research lead analyst and DBTA contributing editor Joe McKendrick. A survey, con­ducted by Unisphere Research, a division of Information Today, Inc., in partnership with Dell Technologies, found that applications drive database choices and, more specifically, the quest for ana­lytics is a critical factor in these decisions. Seven in 10 enterprises employ their database platforms for advanced analytics and busi­ness intelligence. In addition, data integration is now seen as an essential function, cited by more than 60% of respondents. Virtual machines are also widespread across data environments, used by close to three-fourths of respondents (74%). In addition, more than one-third, 35%, view DataOps and DevOps methodologies as key to the growth of their environments going forward.

With more data than ever being created, making the right choices among the myriad options for data management and analytics is a top priority for many organizations. To help them progress along their data-driven journeys, each year, DBTA presents the Readers’ Choice Awards which provides the opportunity to recognize com­panies whose products have been selected by the experts—our readers.

Representative of the IT market itself, the categories in the com­petition are diverse, ranging from well-established technologies such as MultiValue and relational database systems to newer products and services for DataOps, streaming, and the Internet of Things.

Here we present the top three vote-getters in each category. Congratulations to all and thanks to everyone who submitted nominations and voted!