August 2, 2019

Database Change for Cloud-Native Applications

Most new applications are now born in the cloud and the cloud has changed data management forever. It’s easy to spin up new environments with the click of a button, allowing teams to move faster than ever before.

The catch is that each new environment requires an additional cloud database instance that needs to be managed. When you increase the number of databases across distributed cloud instances, it’s harder to keep your database changes in sync.

The Challenge of Deploying Databases to the Cloud

The new challenge for enterprises is to be able to safely scale-out cloud database services. Companies that figure out how to effectively manage deployments across an ever-increasing set of cloud database instances will win.

The beauty of a database release automation solution is that it is system-agnostic. No matter where your databases reside, rules and standards are automatically enforced across all databases, ensuring bad changes are never deployed.

The Democratization of Data

As we move to a world of cloud-native applications we must embrace a world where “you build it, you run it” is a reality and not a PowerPoint slide title. For this to work, developers must have the freedom AND responsibility of deploying their applications when they see fit. To that end, we cannot shackle development teams with the leg weights of an external data services team to review their changes.

With a Rules Engine, naming conventions and best practices are codified into rules that enforce data standards in the first environment they see—development. For example, you may have a standard to require all columns in a foreign key to have indexes on those columns. (Kudos if you do!) Datical can make sure that this standard is enforced for every single deployment.

Developers love this functionality as it creates tighter feedback loops for quality. DBAs love it because they no longer have to enforce these standards with manual reviews.

What this leads to are development and operations teams that can focus on what is truly important for the organization: delivering the best possible software to the customer quickly.