Choosing a database is one of the most critical decisions your business will ever make. It goes without saying that the right database can foster growth, while the wrong one can limit it. And it is a decision that is not easily reversible. If your database isn’t meeting your needs, moving to a new one can be a time-consuming and expensive undertaking. Then again, if your database isn’t meeting your needs, it hardly matters how difficult it might be to migrate to a new one. If you want your business to thrive, you have no real choice.
No database is “better” than another, but every database is more or less appropriate to your needs. Your needs are determined by
- types of data to be used and stored
- size and structure of databases
- performance requirements
- existing technology
- relations with vendors
- anticipated growth of data needs
- types of decisions that drive your business.
Once you have a complete picture of your database needs, you can begin to search for the database you need. It will be a comprehensive process, but you can get started by learning the strategies of the various database system providers.
Microsoft SQL Server, for example, is designed for performance and for seamless operation in both the cloud and on-premises. It accelerates mission-critical applications by fitting tables entirely in memory, thus avoiding the read-write activity that slows disk-based databases. Some queries are 100 times faster than older legacy solutions. Microsoft also built this software with an eye to security. Microsoft SQL Server has been named the most secure database five years in a row by the Comprehensive Vulnerability Database of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
SQL Server allows multiple users to use the same data concurrently and ensures data integrity with row-level locking. Files can be up to 16 terabytes, and the maximum table size is 524,272 terabytes. Designed to work in a cloud/on-premise hybrid environment, it makes your data available anywhere you go.
Oracle Database makes consolidating databases quick and simple. In addition, its multi-tenant architecture makes cloud services both stable and scalable. This database also includes in-memory data processing capabilities that deliver a breakthrough analytical performance. It pools data in memory and consolidates file changes to do them altogether, which provides for superior performance.
Oracle is ported to more platforms than any of its competition, as it runs on more than 100 different hardware platforms and 20 different network protocols. Writing an Oracle application is safe from changes in direction in both hardware and software. Backup, recovery, and fault tolerance are among the best of any database. Oracle has a superior ability to manage multiple databases within the same transactions using various protocols. It is simple for users to move data to where it is needed from node to node and with data mirroring. Both file size and database size are unlimited.
SAP Sybase optimizes its offerings with specialized editions. SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) is intended for mission-critical applications. It is designed to accelerate transaction-intensive multiuser applications at low cost. It features in-memory computing, high-volume data replications, and simple but sophisticated administration. It handles massive volumes of data and thousands of concurrent users.
Where ASE is designed for transactions, SAP IQ is intended for business intelligence and data warehousing, which it simplifies with an in-memory data fabric architecture. It is known for scalability and performance. Its column-store design can provide performance improvements over row-based systems, which often must read an entire table to retrieve a storage object.
To SAP IQ’s scalability and performance, SAP HANA adds the speed of in-memory processing for operational reporting. Together, SAP IQ and SAP HANA provide a distributed in-memory analytics platform, suited to sophisticated planning and decision making supported by extremely large quantities of data.
Your business’s database strategy must be developed with consideration for the varying database technologies that are available on the market and how they can be used to support the data used by your business. In other words, you need to develop a comprehensive database strategy and find a database offering that fits it. It can be a daunting process, and the stakes are very high. There is an alternative, however: Spinnaker Support database strategy development services.
We can help you develop a comprehensive database strategy. Our team will work with your IT department to help devise a plan that will meet the demand of each division of your company. Our team of experts understands the features, benefits, tricks, and trends that are characteristic to each database available on the market. These insights allow us to ensure that your database strategy will be implementable, will perform as planned, and will support rather than limit the growth of your business.