You Really Do Need a Database Strategy
Mon, 06 Feb 2023 18:42:50 -0000
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I’m amazed at how many companies I talk to that don’t have a discernable database strategy. Aggregate spending on database technology for software, services, servers, storage, networking & people runs six figures for most medium sized companies and into the tens of millions per annum for large companies. So anyway you slice it it’s a large investment that warrants a strategy.
First let’s consider the different kinds of database technologies out there. There’s relational, time series, geo-spatial, GPU, OLAP, OLTP, HTAP, New SQL, NoSQL including key-value, document, wide-column and graph. All together there’s probably 400ish different choices. Many large companies have 10 – 20 of these different one’s floating around.
How does one get started?
- Firstly, take inventory. This is not as easy as it sounds. People often buy things via their own budgets, use open-source software that may not incur license spend, acquire software packages that have a database in them, clone software and so on.
- Then add up how much is spent on them. Go back three years. This is not to imply that sunk costs matter but what we seek to do with it is understand the trend.
- Categorize all the products starting with what is detailed above.
- Mainstream/Standard, Niche, Emerging, Contained are some categories that may resonate.
- Detail usage
- Determine overlap & redundancy.
- If you have data marts on SQL Server, Greenplum, Netezza and Vertica then you probably have three more databases serving this function then you need.
- You run kafka all over the enterprise but’s it’s running on HCI, baremetal & virtual on Dell, HPE and Lenovo. Simply run it on baremetal with Dell and jettison the rest.
- Inspect acquisitions done over the last five or so years. This is a ripe area.
If you like a free consultation on your particular dilemna please do contact me at Mike.King2@Dell.com