Insights

With data being the lifeblood of your business, it’s crucial for every organization to keep well-managed databases. Having the right database management skills and the diligence of following best practices for the proper maintenance and optimization of its databases strongly impacts the overall health of an entire organization.  The knowledge and skills your organization’s database administrators must possess are crucial in facilitating the health, availability, and performance of a database. Since DBAs are required to consistently optimize database performance and handle any situation that may arise, they must be diligent in following best practices for database management.

Is there anything worse than finding out everyone else knew something before you did? No one likes being out of the loop. And in the case of database management, the things your database administrators (DBAs) don’t know can be bad news for your business-critical IT and your organization as a whole. That’s why DBAs must stay on top of emerging database management trends — or they run the risk of falling behind on critical technological and tactical industry updates.  

  “In life, change is inevitable. In business, change is vital.” ~ Warren G Bennis Have you asked yourself this question? “Are my current database management needs the same as they were five years ago?” As the industry evolves over time, the needs of your business transform as well. If you haven’t reevaluated your database management support requirements in some time, it’s likely your organization’s needs have changed. When it comes to managing your enterprise database system, what works for one company may not always work for another; and what may be best-suited for your business at one point in time may not always be the best fit in the long run. This includes factors outside of your organization that may have changed (i.e. technological shifts, new platform offerings, product/service choices, etc.). This is why it’s important to assess where you currently stand with your database management support strategy, and if necessary, make those changes that will lead your organization towards growth and success. 

Being the heart of your business, your databases house all the critical data of your entire organization; so it’s imperative to keep them well-managed by having the right database management skills.  If there are missteps or holes in your database management, these can have a detrimental impact on your entire business. Well-organized and efficiently-run databases are crucial to your daily operations, as well as to the future growth and overall success of your organization.  

If you are using the Microsoft Access database management system, your demands will likely outpace both its capacity and computational limits. Handling these hurdles (hopefully with the right database support solution) before they become problems will be critical to keeping your databases running smoothly. You and your team may have identified inefficiencies or performance issues and determined your database is, or will soon be, ready for an upgrade. Just as your business quickly outgrew those handy Excel spreadsheets, your database is now slowing down and taking up more and more of your precious IT resources. If you fit this description, it’s probably time to transition to Microsoft SQL Server, either locally or in the cloud.

Database management is an important responsibility of any business, yet it’s one that often gets overlooked or handed off to a team member who knows just enough to keep things running (the accidental DBA). Unfortunately, in such cases, the “return” on a lack of investment in this important responsibility can be catastrophic. The impact of an under-qualified database management solution typically shows up in the form of unexpected downtime, a costly situation to say the least.

Using remote support for database administration may seem like a scary prospect. What happens if something goes down? Will you be able to reach them? Would an in-house database administrator (DBA) be able to help be faster? There are a lot of questions to be sure.

Employee turnover is to be expected with any business, but it can be particularly disruptive when it comes to your IT team. For instance, if your database administrator (DBA) leaves, it won’t be long until your IT team feels stretched assuming the role of accidental DBA — picking up their tasks until a strong replacement is found and brought up to speed.

If you’ve ever been told, “because that’s the way it’s always been done,” you know that’s the kiss of death for innovation. Yet, that’s the very reason so many organizations are stuck with sub-par database management solutions that either stretch IT resources too thin or rely on under-qualified staff (e.g. an accidental DBA) to manage this critical technology. In this day and age of constant digital transformation, the excuses to not have a solid support solution for your SQL Server, Oracle, or MySQL databases are dwindling.

There’s always a certain level of stress where database management is concerned, but moving those databases to the cloud takes things to a whole new level. There’s a lot to consider — Which cloud? What workload(s) will you be moving? What’s your strategy for maintaining the same (or better) security in this new environment? How will you backup your system? — and each of these questions will lead to dozens others.