Leveraging Relational DB to Control IT Sprawl
November 7, 2016By Daniel Morton
Reading Time: about 4 minutes
Data is the foundation of businesses today. Thus, database technology is a critical component of any IT infrastructure. In a typical enterprise IT environment, it’s not uncommon to see engineers and developers create hundreds or even thousands of databases and the bare metal machines or VMs needed to run them. That raises the issue of a significant problem for companies, both large and small -- database sprawl. The Uptime Institute estimates that up to 30% of servers in this country alone are "comatose," but still "racked and running." In the typical enterprise environment there are huge numbers of resources sitting idle, poorly optimized, under-utilized, or completely forgotten. A digital footprint like that consumes more in resources than many companies care even to think about.
The Problem of Database Sprawl
Management of IT sprawl is more than simply an administrative headache. There are both tangible and intangible costs that impact an organization’s IT operations, and those costs can add up quickly. Here is just a sample:
- Poor Use of Resources - IT personnel now have the added responsibilities of administering databases and maintaining servers.
- Best Practices Overlooked - The fact is, all databases are not implemented or maintained in the same