The size and complexity of database environments is pushing IT resources at most organizations to the limit. This reduces agility and increases costs and challenges associated with maintaining the performance and availability of these on demand services. To address these concerns, many IT departments are looking for ways to automate routine tasks and consolidate databases.
Joe McKendrick, lead research analyst at Unisphere Media; Don Sullivan, product line marketing manager for business critical applications and databases at VMware; and Sam Lucido, director of technical applications and marketing at EMC Corp., recently discussed the use of virtualization in the cloud to help solve these issues in a recent DBTA roundtable webinar.
McKendrick referenced a Unisphere survey, fielded with the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG), that found that 60% of respondents keep their storage architecture on Fibre Channel SAN, something that looks to change in the near-future. “Those Fibre Channel SANs are being slowly pushed out and eventually going to all flash storage or all flash Fibre SANs,” said Lucido. Close to half the cases surveyed are using virtualization in their storage, according to McKendrick.
“Virtual storage has been talked about for many years because it simplifies storage management layer of an infrastructure,” Lucido said. “There’s a simple, but powerful message in this data.”
The survey revealed that 51% of respondents have seen a reduction in costs from using virtualization within their Oracle environment, with 43% consolidating their data centers, and 38% seeing greater agility within their systems. Virtualization plays a key role in provisioning databases and business continuity, according to McKendrick.
To view this webinar, go here.