Enterprises of all sizes are more and more drawn to the allure of the cloud, called in by faster reach times to markets. There are vast options available, from databases-as-a-service options to complete managed services. Even enterprises accustomed to unleashing their own technologies are not lagging far behind in the desire for cloud databases.
Enterprises and service providers alike have taken to the viability of the idea of having databases in the cloud in much the same way ducks take to water. Industry analysts assert that the momentum for cloud databases only expects to increase. According to TechNavio, which is a company that specializes in technology research, the percentage representing the total rate of growth of the cloud-based database market globally is forecasted to stand at 62 percent by the year 2018.
A major motivator for this growth is the growing need for technical speed, even though many other considerations and factors come into play, including a shortage of in-house expertise. The latter reason in particular is of great importance now, when more companies and enterprises are looking to embrace the emerging technology of NoSQL databases in order to deal with exponentially growing datasets.
Many options
For businesses and enterprises that are ready to make the change to cloud databases, there exists a host of options from managed services, which offer more in terms of hands-on monitoring and support to self-service DBaaS (database-as-a-service) systems. The lines between different services are however rather blurry. For example, DBaaS may also provide database tuning services apart from the primary database access which the package describes.
While in the past purchasing cloud database services was a demonstration of an organization’s inability to expand its limited technical infrastructure, this is no longer the case. Even where there is no immediate lack of server and technical resources, an organization may draw towards the cloud database system because of the better opportunities it affords.
For instance, one organization may lack an ever-present data service in its network, which will properly support/fit the distributed configurations the said organization has envisioned for its API (Application Programming Interface) management application.
Another may lack immediate access to database skills or expertise required to “rapidly get a project up and running” when need arises. Even with a staff of engineers, it may be difficult for instant deployment them towards said projects, especially with larger enterprise environments where technical resources need a 6-12 month advance notice for proper scheduling and budgetary allocation.
According to one cloud database service provider Cloudant, the presence of cloud computing and database management frameworks enables firms to develop ideas much faster and get them into production and eventually to the market even faster than before. This acceleration is in part attributable to the reduction in cost and risk incurred by an enterprise comparative to the stakes of a DIY l project.
By foregoing the latter, a company may be able to tap into several clusters of cloud database capacity and capability to support its own API management application.
Shifting the focus to Core Competencies
An investment company based in Atlanta faced dire technical resource constraints. The company’s main business was the provision of SaaS-based analytical tools and an institutional investment database, both geared towards investment analysis. In the course of its operations, services offered included over 34,000 conventional investment vehicles/options as well as another over 25,000 alternate strategies – hedge funds for instance, among others.
Six years back, the company had been much smaller, and the major reasons it went into cloud hosting service providers was to benefit from economies of scale and increased scope as regards availability of technical resources. It therefore retained managed hosting services, with an arrangement that provided for servers, network, databases and other storage systems.
According to the chief operations officer, a huge factor for the shift to a hosting service company was the experience in such management matters as database optimization and storage area networking. Having to employ in-house technical specialists in these areas would have consumed quite an amount on an already strained budget.
The result is that even though the company has now grown enough to be able to host its database infrastructure within the organizations, it continues to prefer the initial external hosting arrangement since the advantages presented by the larger option still apply.
The rationale behind that is this: it is more beneficial to focus energy and available technology resources towards the core business operation(s), which you are more likely to be excellent at, and which will therefore provide a better return for resources spent.
Demand for NoSQL databases
Companies have also increased their demand for specialized assistance in implementing NoSQL databases, which has definitely contributed towards the rise popularity of cloud database services. Relational technology is important, definitely, but in the face of customers’ demands for responsiveness in real-time and faster page load-times, a different database type will be necessary.
NoSQL databases are faster than their SQL counterparts, which is why organizations that implement it use it to provide cashing as well as distributed session management through a number of physical application instances. However, were such projects to be implemented in-house, various matters would arise for consideration: finding staff with expertise in NoSQL database management or having to cross train the existing staff in the same.
This is much easier circumnavigated through relying on the resources of a cloud database service provider/vendor.
Different approaches
Organizations that choose to adopt cloud databases and related services have an array of deployment methods at their disposal. Determining factors in this decision would be time to market and the security, not forgetting the innate ability the database has regarding scalability. The assumption must always be that the production environment shall scale upwards very quickly, and the database chosen must be able to accommodate this growth seamlessly.
Other factors that will also be important to consider include the company’s data needs i.e. the volume of data typically handled every day as well as the performance of the service vis-à-vis critical organizational operations and user requirements.
On the whole, it can be concluded that the trend towards managed cloud databases services is likely to hold sway in the future, as companies decide to shift focus to the things they are good at. For more information, contact remote DBA – http://www.remotedba.com/.
