As database administrators (DBAs) undertake more responsibilities than ever before, Janis Griffin, database performance evangelist and senior DBA, SolarWinds, with 26 years of experience under her belt, is looking to calm worries over increased workloads.
“There are a lot of benefits by virtualizing the database,” Griffin said. “Most DBAs don’t have just one database instance they are responsible for. Often, DBAs are asked to do more with less, again, virtualizing would reduce even their time spent in managing that number of databases.”
Griffin will host two discussions at Data Summit 2015, with one focusing on the “Best Practices of Databases installed on VMware,” which is also titled “DBAs, worried about your databases moving to VMware? No need to panic!” Her other discussion will emphasize the pros and cons of “Virtualizing Your Database for Performance.”
The 2-day event, which will be held May 12-13 and preceded by a day of workshops on May 11, will take place at the New York Hilton Midtown. Griffn’s “Virtualizing Your Database for Performance” workshop will be presented on Monday, May 11, at 9 am while her presentation on Best Practices will occur Wednesday, May 13, at 11:45 am.
“As a long-time DBA, what I find is there’s a lot of resistance from DBAs to virtualizing just because once you do, things change underneath the database,” Griffin said. “There’s a lot of pushback sometimes from DBAs to virtualizing. I thought this would be an interesting workshop to try to explain how to monitor best practices setting up.”
Virtualizing databases is a more cost-efficient way to manage and secure data environments, Griffin explained.
“With the introduction of cloud and everything else, it’s kind of like the last frontier to get everything into the virtual world,” Griffin said. “Virtualization has been around for a long time. We’ve virtualized our desktops and applications. Databases are the last thing to be virtualized.”
As the benefits of cloud becomes more apparent, virtualization is going to be the wave of the future, Griffin noted. Virtualizating data or databases abstracts the technical environment, Griffin said, making it more flexible.
“You’re no longer tied to a specific piece of hardware that has specific resources of CPU disc and all the memory,” Griffin said. “When you virtualize you take the physical layer and abstract it so you can quickly add physical boxed underneath it.”
It increases high availability to make changes on the fly if IT is having performance issues. Additionally, virtualization helps with upgrades. “Because you’re working with one tool you have VMware that you can quickly clone, backup, take snapshots of in an agile environment to help with that release cycle,” Griffin said. “There’s a quicker turnaround to get products to production and bringing those databases back to development so they can work on the next lifecycle.”
This will be Griffin’s first time speaking at Data Summit and she is anxious to share her knowledge with others. “I’m really looking forward to it and I’m excited to be at the Summit for the first time,” Griffin said.
For more information about Data Summit and to register for the event, visit www.dbta.com/DataSummit/2015.