GridApp Systems' Study Highlights Inefficiencies of Database Administration
Wednesday, 17 May 2006
GridApp Systems, Inc., provider of database automation solutions, has announced the findings of a commissioned study that identifies the latest trends and best practices in database management and operations.
The study conducted by Customer Relationship Management firm, Jet Powered Group, polled more than 8,000 senior IT professionals working for US-based companies with at least 2,500 employees. Of the IT professionals who participated in the study, 55 percent were Database Administrators (DBAs) and 21 percent were DBA managers.
Key results of the study revealed that:
· 66 percent of DBA resources are being consumed by activities that do not drive company revenue
· DBAs spend between 40 percent and 80 percent of their time on problem identification and resolution instead of contributing to performance optimization through tuning, infrastructure planning and proactive management
· The most pressing DBA initiatives involve getting a better handle on routine, ongoing administrative operations such as upgrading database versions and maintaining performance levels
· Meeting security and compliance standards are also a top concern for DBAs
· Good DBAs are hard to find and costly to acquire as 76 percent of respondents say it takes over three months to hire and train a new DBA
“The manual processes that IT organizations follow in order to manage their database operations typically result in squandered DBA time and ability,” said Rob Gardos, president and CEO of GridApp Systems. “This study shows that DBAs are spending the majority of their time putting out fires and maintaining the status quo. There’s a real opportunity for IT operations to not only achieve significant cost reductions, but grow existing revenue through the introduction of database automation solutions. Moreover, the industry is ready for automation, with 83 percent of IT professionals currently seeking solutions to improve database administration.”
The study also revealed more general insights into IT system trends, reporting that a number of databases are currently in use for either development or production, with the most common being Oracle (90 percent) and MS SQL Server (79 percent). Also, companies reported having, on average, between 101 and 500 relational database instances in production.