DBTA E-EDITION
August 2024
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Trends and Applications
There is a confluence of activity—including generative AI models, digital twins, and shared ledger capabilities—that are having a profound impact on helping enterprises meet their goal of becoming data driven. Capturing data, converting it into the right insights, and integrating those insights quickly and efficiently into business decisions and processes is generating a significant competitive advantage for those who do it right.
Despite the overwhelming promise of AI, its rapid proliferation has been accompanied by some unwanted side effects, including a dramatic uptick in cyberattacks— particularly social engineering attacks like phishing, which have grown 1,265% since late 2022. As a result, organizations across industries are faced with an ever-evolving challenge: balancing the positive use cases associated with AI, such as automated monitoring and streamlined workflows, with its very real risks.
With today's data-driven practices and AI demands, there has never been more pressure on data managers and professionals to deliver real-time, high-quality information when and where it is needed. Many organizations are struggling to achieve such a level of "data management maturity," in which data is provided on an agile, automated basis.
In many organizations, microservices have become the default method of application building and deployment, leveraging containers and Kubernetes. The resulting architecture has been a flexible network of services that provide resiliency by operating independently, unaffected by potential failures in other parts of the system. Recently, however, some technology leaders have been questioning if this is the best way to build.
Columns - Database Elaborations
Everyone likes a diagram. Diagrams often help make an issue clear—except when they don't. There are plenty of diagrams that really do not convey information to the viewer, and that is a sad state for any diagram to find itself in. Maybe, just maybe, not everyone has the proper temperament to create a useful diagram? Before composing a diagram, the diagram-builder needs to be clear about what viewers of the created diagram should gain from viewing it.
Columns - DBA Corner
Regular readers of this column are aware that I am a proponent of getting rid of bad database standards. But sometimes it can be difficult to determine if a particular standard is bad, or just a lot of trouble to comply with! Well, what am I getting at here? Have you ever been thwarted by a global fiat from management? Of course you have, we all have. But I'm talking about a particular type of dictum from above. Something like this: "New software installations, including updated versions and releases, must be supported by current tooling before they can be installed."
Columns - Next-Gen Data Management
Picture this: there's a new face in the IT department, ready to step in to help tackle the increasingly complex challenges caused by modern hybrid on-prem and multi-cloud environments. Overstretched technology teams always appreciate an extra set of helping hands, but what happens when this new team member isn't human—but artificial intelligence (AI)?
Columns - Emerging Technologies
In Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, various alien races were able to communicate with each other thanks to the Babel Fish, which, when placed in one's ear, decoded brainwave emanations from one species to provide instantaneous translation to the other. In Star Trek, a "universal translator" allowed instantaneous translation between any alien species and humans. Until recently, these universal translators have existed only in the domain of science fiction.
MV Community
To help organizations progress along their data-driven journeys, each year, DBTA presents the Readers' Choice Awards, which provide the opportunity to recognize companies whose products have been selected by the experts—our readers. MultiValue software vendors continue to address emerging challenges and opportunities that are affecting the IT landscape by frequently adding new features and integrations with other platforms and services, helping their loyal and committed customers to stay up-to-date with the latest technology trends.