This year more than ever before, customers are turning to online transactions in response to decreased physical mobility due to the COVID-19 crisis, employees are working from home, and an uncertain economy is demanding smarter ways to compete. At the root of all these capabilities is data and the ability to analyze and act on data-driven insights. What technologies are coming to the forefront to enhance enterprises' ability to compete on data? We asked a number of leading industry experts and solution providers to describe what they see as the most impactful technologies shaping today's data environments.
Posted June 29, 2020
Modernization is driving many of today's enterprise data strategies—and cloud stands out as the primary vehicle for attaining this modernization. However, many enterprises are struggling with data quality issues, as well as integrating cloud-based and on-premise data.
Posted June 10, 2020
Organizations are increasingly turning to cloud data warehouses for advanced analytics and data visualizations. Solutions like Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, and more provide immediate value with secure and easy access to any data with near-infinite scalability. However, the convenience of having all of that data accessible from one platform makes full transparency and control essential.
Posted June 10, 2020
This year more than ever before, customers are turning to online transactions in response to decreased physical mobility due to the COVID-19 crisis, employees are working from home, and an uncertain economy is demanding smarter ways to compete. At the root of all these capabilities is data and the ability to analyze and act on data-driven insights. What technologies are coming to the forefront to enhance enterprises' ability to compete on data? We asked a number of leading industry experts and solution providers to describe what they see as the most impactful technologies shaping today's data environments.
Posted June 10, 2020
Database technologies are constantly changing and adding new options for enterprises. At Data Summit Connect, a free 3-day series of data-focused webinars, a session titled "The New World of Database Technologies," looked at two key NoSQL databases, MongoDB, a cross-platform document oriented database, and AnzoGraph DB, an MPP (massively parallel processing) graph database designed to accelerate data integration and scalable analytics.
Posted June 10, 2020
Today, there is a constantly evolving list of data management issues that organizations are contending with. In addition to pressures of exploding data volumes, there is urgent demand for real-time data-driven insights as well as more widespread data access. Expanding regulatory mandates also demand greater data quality and governance, as do cybersecurity threats. Whether cloud-based or on-premise and open source or proprietary, there are many options for data management and analytics. Spanning the spectrum of well-established and cutting edge, the DBTA 100 list recognizes companies that are innovating and preparing for the future.
Posted June 10, 2020
Today, there is a constantly evolving list of data management issues that organizations are contending with. In addition to pressures of exploding data volumes, there is urgent demand for real-time data-driven insights as well as more widespread data access. Expanding regulatory mandates also demand greater data quality and governance, as do cybersecurity threats. Whether cloud-based or on-premise and open source or proprietary, there are many options for data management and analytics. Spanning the spectrum of well-established and cutting edge, the DBTA 100 list recognizes companies that are innovating and preparing for the future.
Posted June 10, 2020
What more companies need today is a "data lab" to create ideas from data and a "data factory" to turn those ideas into products. Google, Amazon, and other data-driven giants already work like this. So should companies outside of technology.
Posted May 13, 2020
Informed business decisions are backed by data and the actionable insights workers are able to glean from various datasets. However, if you're a data steward, data engineer, data scientist, analyst, or anyone else requesting data to answer important business questions, the easy access to people with data and data context is suddenly and indefinitely gone.
Posted May 13, 2020
Business and IT have, in the past, used times of crisis to adapt and transform themselves for the better. While the COVID-19 pandemic has undeniably had a devastating effect on business, and life itself, it may also be a catalyst for change, compelling organizations to rethink their long-term operations and spending amidst the short-term crisis brought on by the health emergency. Industry leaders recently discussed what "the new normal" may look like.
Posted May 13, 2020
In almost every organization, databases are where the most valuable information resides. Databases have lots of sensitive data in a concentrated form that is specifically designed to be easy to search and analyze. That makes databases a high-value target for bad actors and increases the priority for most organizations to secure the database.
Posted May 13, 2020
We live in a business world that craves instantaneous response times, especially in terms of the responsiveness of modern transactional applications. Customers expect to make a money transfer, pay a bill, or buy a product online in a matter of seconds. This insatiable desire for speed to customer parallels the need to increase speed to market for these modern apps. With development activity accelerating through DevOps, do we ever stop to consider the increased demands this is putting on batch processing?
Posted April 08, 2020
To get a full appreciation for the incredible pace of change in business technology, look at the past 6 years. In 2014, IDC published a report that said that, by 2020, the digital universe would contain nearly as many digital bits as there are stars in the universe, and the data we create and copy annually would reach 44 zettabytes, or 44 trillion gigabytes. Guess what? It's 2020. And it turns out IDC was correct in assuming that we were about to endure a data deluge.
Posted April 08, 2020
With $3.6 trillion in mergers and acquisitions completed in 2019 alone, M&A activity has been booming. However, a merger or acquisition isn't just a business decision and a business process. It's also a massive undertaking on the IT side, as you figure out how to migrate and integrate business applications and business data.
Posted April 08, 2020
The hype around DevOps and its potential to drive greater ROI across a wide range of enterprise operations increased substantially in the last decade. However, as these expectations carry into 2020, organizations will start to take a more sober approach to DevOps implementations. While DevOps was initially seen as a widespread solution to all sorts of enterprise IT issues, the implementation of DevOps approaches is now shaping up to become more strategic and focused, with much of the emphasis on how to maximize the ultimate return on investment.
Posted April 08, 2020
DevOps, DataOps, AI, and containers all lead to one important innovation for enterprises seeking to be more data-driven—and that is greater automation. Data-driven enterprises cannot function if data resources and applications are in any way being manually administered, deployed, remediated, or upgraded.
Posted April 08, 2020
When it comes to DevOps, developers increasingly recognize databases to be code sets that require ongoing integration and deployment. They are "another code deployment which can and should be managed, tested, automated, and improved with the same robust, reliable methodologies applied to application code," according to the authors of a recent survey of 2,000 developers.
Posted April 08, 2020
Cutting-edge startups are constantly emerging to address new challenges and problems in ways never thought possible. Many of these young, innovative companies have fresh approaches that tap into blockchain, quantum computing, advanced analytics, AI, DevOps methodologies, containerization, and data security advancements. To shine a spotlight on some of the ways innovation in IT is being reflected today, here, DBTA presents 28 companies we think are worth watching in 2020.
Posted April 08, 2020
2020 DBTA Readers' Choice Awards: Vote NOW!
Posted March 05, 2020
One of the primary objectives of any high-availability architecture is to ensure that any single points of failure are eliminated, such as cluster nodes connecting to a single SAN. If you are running SAP in the cloud, you can take advantage of your cloud provider's availability zones, which may exist in different geographic regions. Although a high-availability cluster can be deployed within a single zone, the zone itself is a single-point-of-failure. If the zone becomes unavailable, end users may lose access to the entire cluster.
Posted March 05, 2020
Organizations have progressively pushed more infrastructure from on-premise data centers into cloud data centers. Some of this is driven by the desire to reduce costs, but more often than not, organizations are realizing that the infrastructure required for the level of connectivity, data growth, and analytics needed for success in a modern organization is well beyond the reach of homegrown infrastructure.
Posted March 05, 2020
DBTA Announces the 2020 Database DevOps Innovation Award Winners
Posted March 02, 2020
Zions Bancorporation Automates and Aligns Database Change Delivery with Datical
Posted March 02, 2020
PASS Implements Modern Database DevOps Approach with Redgate Software
Posted March 02, 2020
SelectHealth Accelerates App Development with Delphix Dynamic Data Platform
Posted March 02, 2020
Although it can be challenging for enterprises to try and maintain this pace of innovation, they have plenty of tools available to make it possible, including augmented analytics, which aims to capitalize on the large quantity of data. Gartner predicts that this next wave of analytics, which integrates AI and machine learning technologies into analytics workflows, will be a big disruption in the coming years.
Posted February 10, 2020
While organizations are adopting cloud for some areas of their database estate, very few are migrating totally. DBAs now need to manage hybrid estates that combine on-premise and cloud deployments. No wonder that 23% of respondents see migrating to the cloud and integrating with the cloud as their biggest challenge over the next 12 months. Ensuring they have the ability to monitor their entire estate from a single tool is therefore vital if DBAs are to remain on top of their workloads.
Posted February 10, 2020
For data managers, AI and machine learning not only offer new ways of delivering rapid insights to business users but also the promise of improving and adding intelligence to their own operations. While many AI and machine learning efforts are still works in progress, the technologies hold the potential to deliver more enhanced analytic capabilities throughout enterprises.
Posted February 10, 2020
For years, if not decades, database managers have been struggling with the challenges of providing as much access as possible to corporate information assets while at the same time protecting these crown jewels. All of this work, of course, has had to take place within the confines of relatively tight budget and resource constraints. Now, a new generation of solutions and platforms holds great promise in releasing professionals from the more mundane aspects of their jobs to devote more time to the activities that matter to their businesses. However, even with database automation and cloud resources abundantly available on the market, many database managers still spend inordinate amounts of time on low-level tasks.
Posted February 10, 2020
One of the great challenges with catastrophic events is that they can come from any number of sources, so business owners must make sure they're prepared for all types of disasters. Preparation is the only way to avert disasters and ensure your operations will continue without significant disruption.
Posted January 02, 2020
Data is the lifeblood of all organizations in today's era of digital business transformation. Because it is, the corporate spotlight is especially bright on DBAs who are tasked with ensuring users and applications always have access to the data on which they depend. Considering the hit to a company's bottom line, and potentially to its reputation in the market, when infrastructure and information becomes unavailable, it's easy to see how important it is for these DBAs to have access to the highest-quality, expert technical support professional when help is needed.
Posted January 02, 2020
Trend-Setting Products in Data and Information Management for 2020
Posted December 04, 2019
Think about the last time you filled out a paper form and contrast that with how many times you've filled out forms online. We live in an era where everything is digital. Forms are online, every click is captured, and even personal lives are documented on social media. The first wave of digitization led to more BI and better data-driven decisions. But, as we head into 2020, the focus has shifted from BI to operational analytics. Traditional BI was focused on enabling executives to make decisions using historical data. It was accelerated by technologies such as Hadoop, which were built for scale but could not deliver results.
Posted December 01, 2019
As we stand at the start of a new year and on the precipice of a new decade—the 2020s, DBTA reached out to industry leaders for their perspectives on not only what's ahead in the year 2020 but also what they see developing as the next decade unfolds.
Posted December 01, 2019
Clouds and Autonomous Databases are Poised for Growth
Posted December 01, 2019
The IT industry is going through a major shift from centralized data centers to dispersed deployments across a variety of cloud and on-premise platforms. At the same time, availability is becoming more critical. Recently, Dave Bermingham, technical evangelist of SIOS Technology, shared his views on the current state of high availability in the cloud, and what organizations need to do to ensure continuity of service. "When moving to the cloud, the first thing you will discover is that the traditional SAN-based failover cluster for HA is no longer an option," he noted.
Posted December 01, 2019
Whether you are reading the news, going to the store, dealing with customer service or sending a package, it has become apparent that AI is becoming part of our daily lives. We can see this on more of a macro level with the automotive industry and its adoption of AI to improve the overall driving experience, as well as the healthcare industry as it uses the technology to automate the process of identifying and ultimately diagnosing high-risk patient groups. Even the agriculture industry is taking advantage of AI to improve operating efficiency and assist with the automation of essential farming processes.
Posted December 01, 2019
Businesses have a great deal of experience developing and implementing data protection strategies that allow them to recover from attacks on their on-premise IT environments. However, increasingly, enterprises need to begin considering a new threat to their IT environments. This threat is malicious actors using "zero-day" vulnerabilities—vulnerabilities that are so new, they cannot be patched before they are exploited—to attack and bring down the major cloud providers that organizations are increasingly relying on to host critical applications and data.
Posted October 31, 2019
Database security has always been important, and with the compliance requirements of new regulations such as GDPR and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), it's an issue that reaches across the organization, into the board room and to customers. This attention is putting new pressure on DBAs to secure production data and development and testing databases. Here are some relatively simple database security best practices and security checks that are easily executed, and can help organizations better understand and strengthen their defensive security posture
Posted October 31, 2019
Today, data is critical to every organization and every department within every organization. Yet, all the disparate systems for handling it are creating new challenges. Joe Caserta, founder and president of Caserta, a technology consulting and implementation firm focused on data and analytics strategies and solutions, recently discussed the current state of data integration and what is needed to overcome today's problems.
Posted October 31, 2019
Semantically enabled machine reasoning is an efficient form of AI that can help with basic tenets like data quality and completeness, and that can scale to provide automated pattern recognition for decision support in mission-critical applications. AI - delivered by semantic technologies - opens a wealth of opportunity to improve efficiency in all types of enterprise business applications. In this very powerful new era, errors are reduced, data insights are more sophisticated and quickly gleaned, and staff is freed to focus on excellent service, new product development, and overall business growth.
Posted October 31, 2019
What if the reason the BI implementation was failing was not the users or their willingness to work together, but that they were using the wrong analytics platform
Posted October 31, 2019
On June 11, 2019, the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) released an updated white paper, detailing several action plans (https://csrc.nist.gov) for reducing software vulnerabilities and cyber-risk. In the paper, titled "Mitigating the Risk of Software Vulnerabilities by Adopting a Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF)," NIST provided organizations with solid guidelines to avoid the nasty—not to mention expensive—consequences of a data breach.
Posted October 31, 2019
The data warehouse and data lake each solve different business problems and impose their own unique challenges.Organizations shouldn't write off data warehouses—as they evolve, they are taking on new roles in digital enterprises. Data lakes may add a great deal of flexibility to an enterprise data strategy, but they are supported by fast-breaking technologies that require constant vigilance.
Posted October 31, 2019
There is a sea change underway in enterprise architecture. Just a few years ago, enterprise administrators were fearful of the security implications of trusting an outside provider to protect their data assets. Although security is still a cloud concern—one which predominates at the time of cloud migration, and even grows stronger post-implementation—the use of cloud platforms has gained widespread acceptance.
Posted October 31, 2019
As more companies continue to rely on interconnected networks, virtualized cloud services, and IoT technologies, the potential for downtime and its costs will only rise. By achieving true network resilience, companies can focus on maintaining their services, removing single points of failure and having a plan to bring the network back up to continue normal operations—before it costs them.
Posted October 01, 2019
Data continues to grow in volume, variety, and velocity, resulting in new data management technologies. Recently, Deepti Srivastava, product manager for Cloud Spanner at Google Cloud, discussed how database requirements are evolving and how Google's Cloud Spanner is advancing a relational-NoSQL-convergence approach by giving customers the combined benefits of relational database structure with non-relational horizontal scale.
Posted October 01, 2019
Digital transformation. Infrastructure modernization. Global data center demands. All these forces and more are driving enterprises around the world to seek out next generation cloud-based technologies for a wide range of applications—even those most critical to their business. In reality, however, migrating to the cloud or any other modern architecture is not as easy as it sounds.
Posted October 01, 2019
DevOps is now widely accepted in application development because, by introducing a culture of collaboration and cooperation between development and operations teams, it enables features to be released faster to end users. As DevOps grows, there is a corresponding need to ensure the database is included so that the entire development process is seamless and free of bottlenecks.
Posted October 01, 2019
Oracle has identified a need for "augmented" analytics, leveraging machine learning and AI throughout the analytics process to help drive up the impact and value of data, and enable knowledge workers to uncover more insights. Recently, Bruno Aziza, group VP, Oracle Analytics, described this new phase in analytics, the role that cloud plays in making it possible, and what the capabilities will enable for customers.
Posted October 01, 2019