Enterprises like to talk about their data as though it’s locked securely in a tight vault.
The reality of business data, however, is a lot more nebulous. It’s typically spread out across an organization in isolated pools and designed that way to deliver faster access, dating back to a time when the wide area network was more like the Wild West.
Of course, today, corporate networks are a lot faster and more likely to leverage the cloud to provide better scalability and reliability. As a result, enterprises are re-examining the value of database consolidation—both as a way to reduce costs and become more data driven from an operational perspective.
According to some estimates, as many as three out of four enterprises have some kind of database consolidation plan in motion. But it’s been slow motion to date; less than ten percent of enterprises are believed to have actually completed a database consolidation project.
Why the big disparity between intent and action when it comes to database consolidation? Because consolidating all of your data is a big deal and not to be taken lightly. A lot can go wrong if you don’t get it right: data can be lost, critical business processes can be disrupted, and budgets can be depleted without much to show for it.
To avoid these dangers of database consolidation, enterprises should start by asking themselves some important questions:
- Is the future database platform reliable enough to handle tens, if not hundreds, of databases with six nines of availability?
- Can our network support service level requirements for all of our users if we move our data into a central location?
- If we consolidate our database servers, will our legacy storage system simply become the new bottleneck?
- Will moving from UNIX to Linux or Windows save us money on licensing, support and operations and do we have the in-house skills to support a
- Linux environment?
- Is there a way to reduce our database licensing costs without reducing our data?
- What is the impact of database consolidation on our data security posture?
Our goal at Rolta AdvizeX is to help enterprises identify and address potential roadblocks like these before any data is moved. As part of our Information Advizer engagement, we’ll sit down with various stakeholders—business users, security officers and, of course, IT—and map out a database consolidation strategy that aligns with the business’ bottom line. Only then do we usually start to talk about technology—and, on that front, there’s been a lot to talk about lately.
One of the new technologies we’re excited about is HPE Superdome X: HPE’s largest x86-based server platform to date. Superdome lives up to its name: it’s massively scalable, very powerful, extremely reliable and designed to do the work of dozens of standalone database servers. Equally attractive is the fact that Superdome runs on Linux, Windows or VMware and features a unique partitioning scheme that can dramatically reduce database licensing costs.
Beyond any specific technology, there are a lot of general benefits to database consolidation as well. For example, it’s easier to manage data security when your data is in one place. And it’s easier to manage data integrity when new silos of data aren’t popping up in different places.
Most importantly, though, data consolidation means that business users are going to the same source for answers. This allows businesses to bring reliable, real-time analytics into all of their operations, from supply chain management to customer service.
There’s never been a better time to pool your data resources than right now. When you’re ready to dive into database consolidation, talk to us. ▪