Insights

Your SQL Server database is the foundation of your ERP solution, supporting the applications that power your business with solid data and storage. Those databases are filled with critical data for your corporation — irreplaceable business history, intelligence, and all the data your business needs to maintain the overall health of your company. Keeping them organized and running smoothly is integral to all of your organization’s daily functions and requires meticulous database management.

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.

The “Accidental DBA” is a database management pitfall we’ve covered before, but it’s one we see all too often and bears repeating. The name itself speaks to less-than-ideal database management circumstances. Picture this: An under-qualified IT team member (through no fault of their own) is left with the charge of managing the company’s most critical data, simply because they have the most bandwidth (probably not enough) and a “good enough” database management knowledge base (but far from being an expert). While this solution may keep things running for the most part, your databases deserve (and need) more than “good enough.”

Modern organizations are leveraging cloud-based database solutions more and more for increased accessibility and flexibility. However, even with the improved efficiencies of the cloud, databases still need consistent monitoring and support to optimize performance and handle any situation that may arise. As database solutions evolve and improve, so too do the demands and requirements of managing them.

Microsoft recently announced their first public preview of SQL Server 2019 at the Ignite 2018 conference. SQL Server 2019 stands out from other relational database software not only from its new and enhanced features but from the significant increase in data efficiency it provides its users.

The SQL Server 2017 update has brought some significantly upgraded capabilities to its database engine, integration services, master data services, reporting services, and more. It’s also brought the power of SQL Server to Linux, Linux-based Docker containers, and Windows. All of these updates mean more insights, simpler processes, better database performance, and plenty of changes for on-premise and cloud database services.