Acknowledging the Need for Integrated Data Management in the Cloud
Acknowledging the Need for Integrated Data Management in the Cloud
Gartner recently released their Cool Vendors in DBMS, 2016 report¹ (Gartner subscription required) and in it is a follow up “Where are They Now” bit on NuoDB. It was just three years ago, in 2013, that we were named in Gartner’s Cool Vendors in Information Infrastructure and Big Data, 2013 report² (Gartner subscription required). That same year, we also debuted in Gartner’s 2013 “Magic Quadrant for Operational Database Management Systems³” as a niche player, and in 2015, we moved to the visionaries quadrant.
In the 2016 Gartner Cool Vendor report, I find it interesting, but not surprising, that Gartner recognizes the need for cloud service providers to offer integrated data management services in order to make the adoption of cloud services easier.
For IT organizations as well as application service providers, it’s not enough to outsource the data center. This still leaves the overwhelming task of trying to manage DBMS applications running on a cloud-based infrastructure. As mentioned in our latest whitepaper, “Executing a SaaS Strategy: The Role of the Database,” IT professionals still have to manage servers, choose operating systems, load applications, handle security, and do patching and upgrades for these DBMS applications.
While the cloud-based infrastructure helps organizations quickly achieve geographic scale, IT pros and application vendors have to figure out how to manage distributed databases, including transactional consistency, latency, security, multitenancy and privacy. Sadly, we’ve seen some workaround techniques that are frightening.
Gartner reports that database platform as a service (dbPaaS) is on the rise as the demand for more efficient deployment and management of cloud-based applications grow. They are seeing what they call the concept of “big data as a service,” where vendors are combining components of analytic platforms in the cloud with multiple processing engines, hybrid on-premises integration, and secure data movement.
In fact, Gartner actually identifies a new category they call “avant-garde”⁴ which describes a crop of “new RDBMS vendors [that] started with a relational paradigm and built new architectures to support many of the features that developers, DBAs and operations teams sought in the NoSQL world: distributed processing, commodity hardware, elasticity and hybrid cloud flexibility.”
This should be of particular interest to both on-premise and cloud-based application vendors who may be struggling to move and manage data in the cloud. NuoDB supports full SQL, is compliant with ACID (atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability), and offers enterprise-class security. This provides the ease and confidence vendors and IT organizations are looking for, letting them make the move to the cloud with confidence.
Andrew Reichman, research director at 451 Research, says he is noticing the shift from IaaS to SaaS in application vendors. And, as they increasingly turn to the cloud to support their growing, global and mobile customer base, we’re finding such organizations turning to NuoDB as the only database that can maintain transactional consistency and integrity on a global scale.
What I’m starting to see is a SaaS-first mentality. The SaaS market has become so robust that any application vendor without a strategy to deliver their software via SaaS is falling behind.
We believe being a “visionary” comes with the responsibility to see the bigger picture and take action to help move our industry, as well as our customers, forward in a way that will benefit us all. That has always been my goal at NuoDB, and it’s nice to once again receive validation from Gartner.
1. Gartner, Inc., “Cool Vendors in DBMS, 2016,” A. Ronthal, D. Feinberg, M. Beyer, M. Adrian, N. Heudecker, R. Greenwald, 21 April 2016.
2. Gartner, Inc., “Cool Vendors in Information Infrastructure and Big Data, 2013,” T. Friedman, A. White, R. Edjlali, E. Thoo, F. Buytendijk, R. Casonato, D. Feinberg, 30 April 2013.
3. Gartner, Inc., “Magic Quadrant for Operational Database Management Systems,” D. Feinberg, M. Adrian, N. Heudecker, A. Ronthal, T. Palanca, 12 October 2015.
4. Gartner, Inc., “When to Use New RDBMS Offerings in a Dynamic Data Environment,” A. Ronthal,18 November 2015.
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