Johannesburg, 22 Apr 2005
Today, companies face two main challenges when it comes to their databases: ongoing growth and complexity. In fact, some analysts believe that databases will so much as double in size in the next few years.
Unfortunately, this growth impacts the IT department`s ability to manage the database in terms of performance, administration, and backup and recovery. Needless to say, complexity is also increasing with this growth spurt - the one feeds off the other.
Subsequently, companies face a third and major challenge, finding and retaining technical resources that understand the internals of the database and manage it.
Most large organisations today have a mixture of database technologies - requiring different administration groups to administer these various systems, which share, load and unload common data to a business application.
Although these may require specific knowledge or skills, the majority of common activities are very similar. Companies` environments typically consist of database types such as Oracle, DB2 UDB, Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase or Informix.
Database management and administration become an even bigger issue when you consider that most administrative tools were not originally designed and developed to address diverse environments.
So, it`s important that we break down database management and look at the various aspects that dictate and enable it.
A database server may contain a single copy of a single type of database, multiple copies of a single database type, or even multiple copies of various database types. However, which ever way you look it, these database 'instances` require management.
For most organisations, 'instance` management is performed manually or with customer configurations.
Looking at database performance management, studies have shown that 90% of a database administrator`s time is spent analysing performance issues, while the remaining 10 is spent solving problems.
The answer is to use automated technology that provides information quickly and concisely. The reality is that each component of a database can cause degradation and must be addressed individually.
Therefore, integrated technology will provide insight into each area of database management, thus reducing the amount of time and effort spent on troubleshooting.
Another critical database management task is data security, ensuring users can only access authorised data. Again, database administrators need to create, examine, maintain users, determine roles and profile trails.
The Internet has made the lives of database administrators even more complex.
Again, what is needed is a solution that provides comprehensive, robust database management functionality that not only enables administrators to perform their task in a heterogeneous environment but also effectively manage all databases in the enterprise regardless of brand, platform or structure.
It`s quite clear that companies need to deploy a distributed database management solution that offers them the ability to centralise or decentralise the management of data without affecting service levels and existing applications.
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