Redgate’s third annual State of Database Monitoring Report found that businesses are reprioritizing cloud adoption and automated database monitoring due to the Redgate effects of a global lockdown, remote working and a focus on business continuity.
The State of Database Monitoring 2020 report, which surveyed nearly 1,000 respondents in April 2020, reveals that while performance monitoring and backups remain the most common responsibilities for database professionals, managing security and user permissions have leapt to third and fourth place, respectively. However, there seems to be a learning curve. As database professionals adopt these new roles, respondents say that staffing and recruitment is the second biggest challenge in managing estates.
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Additionally, the two biggest causes of problems with database management come from human error (23%) and ad hoc user access (18%), which could be a result of increased remote working as tasks become more widely distributed. In support of remote teams, respondents reported a rapid increase in the use of cloud-based platforms, particularly Microsoft Azure, which is up 15 percentage points in the last year.
With many businesses like Twitter announcing that remote working will become business-as-usual in the future, the report highlights why effective, reliable monitoring of database estates is critical to business longevity. Perhaps as a consequence, only 18% of respondents continue to monitor their estates manually, and for those who are managing 50 instances or more, the number using a monitoring tool rises to 90%.
As Grant Fritchey, author and co-author of several books on SQL Server and a DevOps Advocate for Redgate, comments: “While our research focused on the need for database monitoring, the issues it uncovered are practically universal given the current business environment. For example, we know that recruitment may be challenging for many, and there is a renewed desire to adopt technologies like the cloud, while still improving performance. And with the uncertainty ahead, we could see lasting changes for years to come.”