1 Cost Effective DBA COST EFFECTIVE DBA

Transcription

1 COST EFFECTIVE DBA

2 1 Cost Effective DBA COST EFFECTIVE DBA With the downturn of the global economy, and the drastic decline in business which resulted, cost-cutting has become the corporate watch word. Even as the economy begins to recover, companies big and small are trying to make do with fewer resources, often to the point of overloading the assets they do have while still not achieving their most basic business objectives. While cutting costs may help the bottom line, it can also impact a business ability to maintain a competitive advantage and jeopardize its ability to grow as the economy rebounds. In today s economy, the key is to find smarter solutions, to discover ways to save money without impacting competitive advantages. All entrepreneurs know change is the one constant in running a business, and that this economy will change for the better. When it does, businesses need to ensure that today s cuts do not block their ability to grow and succeed in the future. Database Administration as a Service (DaaS) is one such smart solution. This service is offered exclusively by Ntirety Inc., experts in Oracle, MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server databases. DaaS is a new way of managing database environments, cutting costs and improving the performance of databases and the mission-critical business applications that run on them. To better understand how Database Administration as a Service can fully maximize on information technology investment, we took a look at the many challenges surrounding database administration and how it affects business applications.

3 2 Cost Effective DBA 20 YEARS OF DATABASE AND APPLICATION MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES Over the past two decades, there has been a proliferation of business applications that leverage information from business databases. Even with the slowdown of the economy, this class of applications has continued to grow aggressively, playing a more important role than ever across every type of organization. Applications that were once reserved for large companies Enterprise applications are now being deployed by small companies as well, as organizations of all sizes require enterprise-class capabilities to remain competitive in today s globalized business environment. But with those enterpriseclass applications come enterprise-class complexity, and all the problems that accrue around it. This application growth is fueling the growth of databases at an alarming rate, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. To put this growth in perspective, the amount of information stored in a typical database grows three to five times in size every three years. Add to that the fact that the growth in applications requires more databases meaning database proliferation is happening everywhere, within companies, and within the business world. BIGGER, MORE COMPLEX DATABASES Advancing database and application growth demands increasingly complex technology in order to keep everything running smoothly. Just ten years ago it was common practice to shut down a database once per week, or even once per day, to do a cold backup. Today, in order to remain competitive, companies like Amazon, ebay, and a multitude of others operate 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. Shutting down is not an option if a company wants to compete at the highest levels in its business sector. This competitiveness means that it is no longer a simple task to backup the databases mission-critical business applications run on. While a replicated database was uncommon just a few years ago, today this competence, and many other high availability capabilities, are imperative just to keep up with competing businesses. DBA SHORTAGE Increases in technology and complexity have put an incredible strain on database administrators ability to keep up with the constantly changing latest advances. Yet, all too often during the economic downturn layoffs of DBAs and other IT support staff became a short-term fix for bottom line woes. Without the DBA support necessary to effectively keep databases and applications running effectively, management teams everywhere put their businesses at risk. Effective database administration skills take years to acquire, and there is currently a distinct lack of DBAs to cover the ever-increasing demand. Those DBAs who have been laid off, in the meantime, are losing the skills to meet future database business challenges. Meanwhile, businesses which are effectively flying blind without a DBA will be ill-prepared for technological advances in the database space and will, as a result, lose competitive advantage. Even on the most basic level, something as seemingly innocuous as a down database can put a company out of business. In short, the challenges faced by businesses these days include: Enterprise-class applications are fueling unprecedented database growth. Enterprise applications come with enterprise-level functionality and complexity. THE ARGUMENT FOR A HIGH AVAILABILITY DBA Today, virtually every type of business Financial Services, Manufacturing, Sports & Recreation, Technology has to keep operations going 24x7 both to service customers and also to continually support internal customers. As a result, High Availability (HA) technologies need to be properly deployed. High Availability related to databases has moved into the mainstream, but the special skills required to analyze the business requirement, deploy the right solution against the specific problem, and then maintain the complex technologies are not often found in-house. Many organizations have the need for HA technologies like Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC) but don t have the skills in-house to support RAC. Or, on the SQL Server side, the same goes for Active/Active Clustering or SQL 2012 Availability Groups. Dataguard for Disaster Recovery, Mirroring, Log Shipping and Virtualization: the list and complexity of HA solutions both keep growing. A new breed of DBA specialists High Availability DBAs is emerging in innovative service firms to address these needs. The HA DBA can step in when in-house resources need augmentation for design, implementations and remediation. Utilization of an HA DBA can be extremely cost-effective: use the resource and pay for it on an as needed, or OnDemand, basis.

4 3 Cost Effective DBA Database complexity is at an all-time high. Databases grow three to five times every three years. DBAs are difficult to find and hard to retain. DBA skills take years to acquire. DBA salaries increase an average of 2-4% annually. There are approximately 400,000 DBAs in the world. In 5 years, the will need 50% more DBAs. The Baby Boomer DBAs are starting to retire. Faced with these factors, companies must develop ways to cost-effectively manage their databases and applications within the parameters of ongoing corporate cost-cutting. TRADITIONAL WAYS COMPANIES FACE DATABASE ADMINISTRATION CHALLENGES Historically, there have been only two ways to deal with the challenges of database administration: 1) Hire a DBA (full-time equivalent), or hire a consultant. Table 1 illustrates the hard costs associated with these two options. In-House DBA versus Full-Time DBA Consultant Annual Expense Monthly Expense Lost Time In-House Full- Time Equivalent $100,000 salary* $35,000 benefits Full-Time Consultant $364,000 salary Based upon $175/hr. rate $11,250 $30,000 Vacation/Sick/Lost 120 hours 120 hours Holidays 80 hours 80 hours Training 40 hours 40 hours DBA Tools Investment Training & Certification Costs $5,000 - $100,000 $1,000 - $5,000** *IOUG Salary Survey **Does not include trtavel & other typical costs associated with training. $5,000 - $100,000 $1,000 - $5,000** On top of these presumed costs, it is no longer viable to hire a single DBA or consultant. With growing technological complexity, DBAs and consultants have specialized in specific technical areas of the business, making a jack-of-all-trades DBA a thing of the past. The business looking for a generalist DBA will have little choice but the choose from among different specialists: Production DBA Development DBA Operating System DBA Data Warehousing DBA Applications DBA High Availability DBA Even if a specialist is selected to address a specific issue, the challenge could change the next month, or even the next week, requiring a different specialist. The technology has advanced beyond the means of a single DBA or consultant to manage a complete database environment. There are many other potential issues and questions surrounding the employment of DBAs what if a full-time equivalent DBA is not required? What if extra DBA resource is required just over a specific busy period? Does it make sense to hire a consultant and lose any gained institutional knowledge at the end of an engagement? What if DBAs are in short demand, or a company experiences high DBA turnover? There is an answer to all of the above questions, an answer to the many challenges surrounding database administration. It is a solution that provides a cost-effective way to deal with database administration and application management in tough economic times without sacrificing quality. It does impact service levels, but actually improves them. It helps companies manage database infrastructure with a 40% or greater immediate return on investment. In fact, for the cost of a single DBA, a business can secure a team of six DBAs, 24/7 coverage and proactive support designed to prevent database and business application failures. THE SOLUTION: DATABASE ADMINISTRATION AS A SERVICE The Internet provides a new way of solving the many challenges posed by the database administration needs of businesses. No longer must the DBA be brought to the database. With Internet connectivity, not the database can be brought to the DBA in a safe, cost-effective way. This is Database Administration as a Service (DaaS). This is a flexible alternative to hiring full-time DBAs or consultants, an alternative which allows a business to purchase the amount of DBA service it requires, no more, no less. The provider of DaaS gets economies of scale which allow for pricing at a fraction of the traditional cost. The typical return on investment for companies that use this service is 40% or more over additional in-house resources, and compared to consultants, the savings are even greater. Here is a cost comparison:

5 4 Cost Effective DBA In-House DBA/Full-Time DBA Consultant vs. DaaS In-House Full-Time Equivalent Full-Time Consultant DaaS for Small-sized Business DaaS for Mediumsized Business Annual Expense $100,000 salary* $35,000 benefits $364,000 salary Based upon $175/hr. rate $18,000 $60,000 Monthly Expense $11,250 $30,000 $1,500 $5,000 Lost Time Vacation/Sick/Lost 120 hours 120 hours Holidays 80 hours 80 hours Training 40 hours 40 hours 0 0 DBA Tools Investment $5,000 - $100,000 $5,000 - $100,000 Included Included Training & Certification Costs $1,000 - $5,000** $1,000 - $5,000** Included Included *IOUG Salary Survey **Does not include trtavel & other typical costs associated with training. ADVANTAGES OF DATABASE ADMINISTRATION AS A SERVICE Ntirety provides a true Database Administration as a Service offering a completely inclusive service that meets all potential database administration requirements. This includes a team of DBAs assigned to each account, all the necessary tools, 24/7 support and proactive service designed to prevent database problems from occurring. All for a predictable monthly cost that allows for effective forward budget planning. Key advantages of Database Administration as a Service include: Immediate return on investment (saving greater than 40%). Predictable, fixed monthly cost. IT Bandwidth support expanded without increasing headcount. Existing IT resources refocused on more strategic initiatives. Database monitoring tools included in fixed monthly cost. Ntirety s vast collective database administration expertise. Around-the-clock support for customer databases that are critical to the performance of business applications % service level guarantee. Reduced staff turnover and burnout. Highly-scalable, on-demand DBA services that are there when needed. Elimination of recruitment costs. Elimination of training and certification costs. Elimination of soft costs and overhead expenses. Improved database performance which translates into mission-critical applications running better. Increased security, compliance and governance best practices. Increased database administration best practices. Database Administration as a Service was conceived fifteen years ago by Mr Michael Corey, CEO of Ntirety. It was developed to take away the burden of increasingly difficult database administration tasks, allowing companies to focus on their core competencies. For the fraction of the cost of a single in-house DBA, any business that depends on databases and the mission-critical applications that run on them can have a team of dedicated, specialized experts, with all the tools and processes in place, to proactively manage their databases. The DaaS team will prevent database failures, which in turn prevents application failures. DaaS is an extremely cost-effective solution for managing databases without compromising service levels. Through this service, databases will run more efficiently, and applications will run more efficiently, all of which means business will run more efficiently and effectively. To learn more about Database As a Service as well as other offerings, please contact Ntirety at sales@ntirety.com or (781)

6 5 Cost Effective DBA CONTRIBUTOR Michael Corey, Founder & CEO of Ntirety, is an experienced entrepreneur and a recognized expert on Relational Databases, Remote Database Administration and Data Warehousing. Talkin Cloud identified Corey as one of the top 200 cloud experts worth watching. VMware named Michael a vexpert and Oracle has named him an Oracle Ace. Michael is the original Oracle*Press Author and has presented at Technical & Business conferences from Brazil to Australia. Michael is a past president of the Independent Oracle Users Group; he helped found the Professional Association of SQL Server, is a current board member of the IOUG Virtualization SIG, and is actively involved in numerous professional associations and industry user groups. Michael currently sits on the executive committee for the Massachusetts Robert H. Goddard Council for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. ABOUT NTIRETY Originally founded as a database services company, Ntirety was created to ease the burden of database administration and maintenance on beleaguered IT departments. With more and more data becoming available to companies, and the complexity of managing and using it constantly increasing, Ntirety has evolved into a full-fledged data services company the Total Data Experts. Ntirety understand the 24/7 cost-conscious, data-driven environment in which businesses now find themselves, and offer services that help them gain real value from all the data they have available. Ntirety look at the whole data lifecycle holistically, and have brought on experts in every area, from database infrastructure and virtualization, to business intelligence and big data. Comprised of the world s foremost data services experts, Ntirety s quality-driven team has worked with Oracle since version 3.0, and bring that same level of expertise to Microsoft SQL Server and MySQL. In fact, they wrote the book on Oracle and SQL many books actually. Ntirety s staff of experts has contributed their knowledge and insight to the database and data services sectors by authoring many volumes on these key systems. Service lies at the heart of the Ntirety offering. Ntirety are determined to exceed customer expectations (and their own) with every engagement. They aggressively monitor the quality of customer service and client outcomes. Ntirety take this so seriously that their teams compensation is based on the results of customer quality surveys. All to ensure that clients receive the best possible service. Sales@Ntirety.com (781)