6 Signs It’s Time to Rethink Your DBA Support Strategy
Learn how hybrid cloud, multi-cloud, and other remote DBA services can be more cost-effective for your business
Postgres is the database for modern businesses – the most well-loved and advanced open source database on the market. If your organization is focused on accelerating innovation, transforming infrastructure, or building new applications, Postgres’ agility, flexibility, scalability, security, and cost-effectiveness are the perfect fit. As enterprises move away from costly and restrictive legacy systems, Postgres has given them a new and solid foundation.
But even the best databases experience issues. Business-critical systems need business-critical DBA support to help you stay online and ensure customer satisfaction. Unfortunately, not all support is created equal, and different support models can produce vastly different outcomes.
If experts are not handling your Postgres DBA support, you risk downtime, outages, loss of revenue, and the diminished reputation that comes with them.
Here are the six tell-tale – and fixable – signs that your Postgres DBA support should be reevaluated.
No one likes to have a business-critical system go down unexpectedly. It should be avoided at all costs, as downtime and performance issues lead to users abandoning your application instead of waiting for it to be fixed.
In one survey, 74% of respondents said they had recently experienced performance issues around open source databases. That’s a significant concern.
Imagine a $500M company whose 24/7 business depends on a Postgres-based application that goes down or is not performing to expectations. The very real cost to this organization is $57,000 per hour, not to mention the hit to their reputation and potential penalties.
Every second your Postgres database is down or slow, you are failing your stakeholders.
Sometimes, problems can’t be avoided, especially when making changes to your infrastructure. And changes often happen – only 12% of surveyed respondents said they hadn’t altered their database environments in the past year.
When making these adjustments, 76% said experiencing more than 10 minutes of downtime with their Postgres database was unacceptable.
So, the question becomes: since you will have database problems, how quickly can you recover? Troubleshooting takes time and expertise. For example, knowing how to drive a car is different from knowing how to fix it. Searching the Internet or hoping you get a timely reply to a posting is too optimistic if your business depends on getting back online.
What is your tolerance for a Severity-1 issue with a mission-critical system?
According to talent.com, an average Postgres DBA may cost an organization over $175,000. And that’s not even for the most experienced ones. Some areas also charge an additional $20,000. Plus, many companies struggle to find qualified administrators even with a budget. In Q1 2023, LinkedIn listed more than 308,000 Postgres DBA positions in the United States – competition is fierce!
If you rely on DBAs who aren’t Postgres experts, they’re less likely to respond to Postgres-specific challenges effectively. Postgres is a feature-rich database with important differences from other systems.
And even with in-house Postgres expertise, insufficient resources can leave your team stretched trying to provide 24/7 support. How long can that be sustained?
It’s time to rethink your staffing approach for database estate management and maintenance.
Do-it-Yourself (DIY) is a time-honored method of reducing costs, but does it always pay off? There are several components to consider before embarking on DIY for Postgres.
First, do you have the expertise? The Internet is littered with stories of individuals trying to build a house or repair their car with disastrous results. These efforts end up costing significantly more than if an expert had been involved from the start.
Next, do you have the budget to maintain, monitor, and optimize your Postgres estate 24/7? With downsizing affecting many organizations, the team’s attention to supporting their environments will suffer.
Lastly, with staff turnover, do you even have time for the hiring process?
Consider more cost-effective resources to manage your Postgres ecosystem.
According to Gartner’s Key IT Metrics Data 2023, only 12% of the average IT budget is allocated for innovation.
Innovations typically focus on increasing revenue, improving profitability, or delivering a competitive advantage – strategic initiatives that move the needle for your business.
However, you can only accomplish these initiatives if your teams have the bandwidth and budget. The average DBA is already overworked. As a result, many companies are seeing their ambitions fall by the wayside as their DBA teams are occupied with tedious maintenance and troubleshooting.
Find a cost-effective way to maintain your Postgres ecosystem while your team focuses on growing your business. Finally, take advantage of transformation that can increase revenue, improve user experience, drive profitability, or achieve a competitive advantage.
What transformational initiatives can you accomplish?
Scouring the Internet and employing a trial-and-error approach for support can be unproductive. Precious hours are wasted as your highly paid team attempts to troubleshoot your database or perform standard housekeeping tasks. The hidden costs of self-support can be staggering.
Maintaining your Postgres database and resolving issues quickly adds up in cost and resources – a consequence of the risky self-support model. You risk failing to meet your SLAs, the expectations of your customers, and corporate revenue and reputation.
Don’t be fooled by the hidden costs of support.
With enterprise-grade Postgres support, you can reduce risk, lower costs, and focus on what matters most to your business. It’s time to allocate resources to strategic initiatives like:
- Implementing AI technology
- Reducing technical debt
- Monetizing data insights
- Modernizing cyber defenses
Rely on technical Postgres support to provide fast, around-the-clock service. Remedy Service-Level Objectives (SLO) to reduce unplanned downtime.
Leverage remote DBA services for operational staff augmentation. It’s a smart approach to getting Postgres expertise and coverage and reallocating current resources to more development projects. With 24/7 monitoring, remote DBA services can resolve issues before they become problems.
Get expert advice on database optimization, customization, and maintenance
This tuning guide for EDB Postgres Advanced Server (EPAS) and PostgreSQL on Linux can help boost server performance on multiple fronts
This webinar features real-world success stories of remote DBA services reducing project timelines and operational costs
This blog gives key tips on PostgreSQL VACUUM, an essential maintenance tool for stable and optimal database performance
EDB Remote DBA Services provide comprehensive, cost-effective 24/7 Postgres expertise. It allows you to be adequately staffed and focus on development projects that move the needle for your business.
Remote DBAs proactively monitor and address issues before they become problems so that unplanned downtime is minimized. They apply patches and secure systems, ensuring strong governance and smooth operations. EDB Remote DBA Services is ideal for reducing costs, optimizing systems, and enabling growth and transformation across your business.
Remote DBA services can:
- Reduce unplanned downtime and ensure system continuity, saving time and resources on backups, upgrades, security patching, and database optimization
- Provide 24/7 coverage without increased staffing and costs
- Reallocate current DBA resources to strategic initiatives
The following services are recommended to ensure peak performance:
- Reports on ongoing environment health and activities
- Strategic reviews on trends, uptime, business alignment, and opportunities
- 24/7 monitoring and automated monitoring implementation
- Real-time alerting across multiple dimensions and customized alert thresholds
- Disaster recovery planning and production backup verification
- Comprehensive performance optimization
- Maintenance of high availability architecture
- Encryption and secured access best practices
Technical account managers provide much-needed technical expertise for PostgreSQL, and value-adding services such as project management, database optimization, and tooling support. A technical account manager is especially helpful if your organization is new to PostgreSQL and interested in utilizing the database to its fullest potential.
Tuning in PostgreSQL means optimizing the database's performance and efficiency by adjusting various configuration parameters. This involves fine-tuning settings related to memory usage, CPU allocation, disk I/O, and query execution to ensure the database operates at its best. Effective tuning can significantly enhance query performance, reduce latency, and improve the overall responsiveness of applications that rely on the PostgreSQL database.
- System DBA
Installs new versions of database management systems, applies maintenance fixes from vendors, sets system parameters, and tunes the operating system for optimal performance. - Database architect
Focuses on creating logical data models, translating them into physical designs and creating backup and recovery strategies for new systems. - Application DBA
Focuses on databases specific for certain applications or subsets of applications. Writes and debugs complex SQL queries, does performance tuning, and manages database changes. - Task-oriented DBA
Focuses on highly specific, critical tasks such as backup and recovery. - Performance analyst
Analyzes query performance, identifies bottlenecks, and recommends improvements. - Data warehouse administrator
Sets up and configures the data warehouse environment and ensures the warehouse can handle complex queries and reporting needs.
A database administrator handles databases’ technical implementation, management, and maintenance. A data administrator handles data governance, integration, and strategic planning. The former uses their technical skills more, while the latter uses their analytical skills more.
This is integrating data from multiple sources into a single target location, like a data warehouse, creating a unified view of information. Doing so eliminates duplicates, standardizes formats, and ensures accuracy and reliability.
Hybrid cloud management means monitoring and optimizing cost, performance, compliance, and security across an organization’s data environments, combining public and private clouds with on-premise resources.
The cloud model for hosting PostgreSQL databases depends on your organization's needs and goals. The advantages of each of the five models are:
- Private cloud (on-premise or remote)
Private clouds allow organizations to fully customize their infrastructure to meet performance, security, or regulatory needs. They provide enhanced security since resources are kept private, which is crucial for handling sensitive data or strict compliance. Costs are also more predictable, usually fixed based on capacity rather than variable usage, which helps with budgeting and planning. - Public cloud
Public clouds offer scalability, allowing PostgreSQL databases to scale up or down based on demand quickly. They're cost-effective for variable workloads with a pay-as-you-go model and provide access to a broad ecosystem of integrated services and innovative tools to enhance database functionality. - Hybrid cloud
Hybrid clouds combine the advantages of private and public clouds, keeping sensitive data on-premises while leveraging public cloud scalability for non-sensitive applications. This mitigates single points of failure, ensures higher availability, and helps meet regulatory requirements. - Multi-cloud
Using multiple clouds can prevent vendor lock-in, allowing organizations to choose the best services and pricing from different providers. This approach optimizes operations, reduces downtime risks, and enhances business resilience by not relying on a single cloud provider. - Polycloud
Polycloud lets organizations use specialized services from different providers when their unique capabilities are best for specific PostgreSQL management tasks. This harnesses each provider's strengths for efficiency, performance, and a competitive edge. For instance, one cloud could gather and process IoT data while another handles complex analytics.
And free up your team for more strategic initiatives
EDB Remote DBA Services improve your operations by leveraging a team of certified Postgres DBAs with 10+ years of experience. These experts will help your systems run faster, use resources more efficiently, manage routine tasks for peace of mind, and monitor your estates 24/7 to prevent issues and downtime. This allows your team to focus on planning, policy-making, and other strategic tasks.