The document discusses trends in database administration that necessitate automation. It notes that data and development speeds are increasing while the number of DBAs is not, leaving less time for manual DBA tasks. Specifically, it recommends automating performance management, change management, backup/recovery, security/authorization, and application support as data grows exponentially and applications are developed and changed more rapidly. The document concludes that without automation, it will become impossible to effectively build and maintain database systems with the challenging trends of massive and diverse data, cloud platforms, and pressure for constant innovation.

1. Automating
Database Administration
is no Longer Optional
More Data, Fewer DBAs,
Increasing Speed, & Heterogeneity
Craig S. Mullins
Mullins Consulting, Inc.
http://www.MullinsConsulting.com

2. This presentation was prepared by:
Craig S. Mullins
President & Principal Consultant
IBM Champion for Analytics
IBM Gold Consultant
Mullins Consulting, Inc.
15 Coventry Ct
Sugar Land, TX 77479
Tel: 281‐494‐6153
Twitter: @craigmullins
E‐mail: craig@craigsmullins.com
http://www.mullinsconsulting.com
This document is protected under the copyright laws of the United States and other countries as an unpublished work. This document contains information that is proprietary and
confidential to Mullins Consulting, Inc., which shall not be disclosed outside or duplicated, used, or disclosed in whole or in part for any purpose other than as approved by Mullins
Consulting, Inc. Any use or disclosure in whole or in part of this information without the express written permission of Mullins Consulting, Inc. is prohibited.
© 2020 Craig S. Mullins and Mullins Consulting, Inc. (Unpublished). All rights reserved.

3. Agenda
– The Undeniable Trends
• Data Growth; No DBA Growth
• Speedier Dev: Agile and DevOps
• More Platforms: Heterogeneity and Cloud
– DBA Tasks
• Performance
• Change Management
• Recovery
• Security and Authorization
• Application Support
– Guidance

4. The Undeniable Data Trends

5. Non‐Stop Data Growth
• More data
• More heterogeneity
• Higher speed of development
• Static number of data professionals
• DBA tasks still required!

6. More
Data

7. Data Growth: another perspective

8. Data Statistics
• Google processes 40,000 search queries per second.
• That amounts to 1.2 trillion searches yearly!
• Each minute, 300 new hours of video show up on YouTube.
• There’s over 1 billion gigabytes (1 exabyte) of data on its servers!
• Over 100 terabytes of data are shared on Facebook daily.
• Smart devices (e.g. fitness trackers, sensors, Amazon Echo)
produce 5 quintillion bytes of data daily.

9. 9
DBMS Market Continues to Grow

10. Types of Database Systems
• Pre‐Relational
• Relational
• NoSQL
– Document Store
– Key/Value
– Wide Column
– Graph
– Hybrid
Source: www.db-engines.com

11. Cloud Adoption

12. Data Gravity vs. Bandwidth
Bandwidth grows by 50% per yearData grows by 36% to 61% per year

13. DevOps
DevOps is not a technology, it is a methodology.
• Continuous
Development
• Continuous
Integration
• Continuous
Delivery

14. Shorter Development Cycles
• A continuous improvement cycle.
– Focused teams
– Sprints, with shorter development
cycles
– Earlier customer feedback
• Value is achieved faster as
releases arrive more frequently
– Continuous improvement
14

15. But There is a Mindset Mismatch
App teams release code more rapidly than Ops teams (infrastructure)
Source: The Need for Speed: Drive
Velocity and Quality with DevOps
Forrester Research, 2017

16. DevOps Growth

17. Data Management Staff
“Growth”

18. Percentage of DBA versus IT Staff

19. Things Won’t Be Getting Any Better
v
By the year 2020

20. DBA Practices and Procedures

21. DBA Tasks Still Required!
• The term discipline implies planning and then
implementing according to that plan.
 Creating the Database Environment
 Provisioning Databases
 Database Integration into IT Infrastructure
 On Premises
 Cloud
 Database Design
 Application Design
 Design Reviews
 Database Change Management
 Data Availability
 Performance Management
o System Performance
o Database Performance
o Application Performance
 Test Data Management
 Data Integrity
 Database Security
 Backup and Recovery
 Disaster Planning
 Storage Management
 Distributed Database Management
 Data Warehouse Administration
 Database Utility Management
 Database Connectivity
 Database Code Administration
 Procedural DBA
 Soft Skills

22. DBA Tasks to Better Automate
• Performance Management
• Change Management
• Backup & Recovery
• Security & Authorization
• Application Support

23. Performance Management
• Monitoring vs. Management: Find It, Analyze, Fix It
Identify
Problems
FIND IT
Optimize
Environment
FIX IT
Determine
How to Fix
ANALYZE IT
Monitoring
Management

24. Additional Performance
Considerations
• Service Level Agreements
• System Performance
• OS interaction, allied agents, configuration, system parameters
• Database Performance
• Partitioning, indexing, clustering, denormalzation, free space,
compression, page size, reorganization…
• Application Performance
• SQL, statistics, query analysis, access paths, views

25. Change Management
• Database fix packs and maintenance
• Database structure/schema changes
– Not as simple as ALTER object
• Simple, Moderate, Complex
• Conformance to standards
– Naming conventions, data types, reuse of data,
proper structures, proper parameters, storage

26. Backup & Recovery
• Recovery Time Objectives (RTO)
– Sufficient backups being made
– Backups made at appropriate times to meet RTO
– Analyze and recommend type of recovery
• Backout, rollforward, transaction recovery
• Contingency Planning
– Disaster recovery plan, disaster testing

27. Security &
Authorization
• Authorization [GRANT | REVOKE]
• Access control and database auditing
• Row Permission
• Column Masks
• TRUSTED CONTEXT and Roles

28. Application Support
• Application design
– Locking, deadlocks, stored procedures, UDFs,
SQL coding guidance
• Test data management and refresh
– Data masking
• Integration into DevOps
• Design reviews

29. Guidance

30. DBAs are being asked to do more…
…with larger amounts and more types of data…
…being accessed more rapidly and from more sources…
…without any prolonged downtime permitted…
…using and supporting new database types and capabilities…
…and with fewer DBAs as a percentage of IT staff than ever before.
Today’s DBA Reality
…moving faster and faster supporting agile development and DevOps…

31. • Without automation it is becoming
impossible to effectively build and maintain
database systems and applications…
– And things will only keep getting more difficult as
the trends we discussed today continue
And that means…
Automation is Required

33. DBA and AI Collision
Source: Gartner Top 10 Trends in Data and Analytics for 2020
https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/gartner-top-10-
trends-in-data-and-analytics-for-2020/
More DBA tasks will be intelligently
automated with AI capabilities

34. Thank You
Contact Details:
Craig S. Mullins
President & Principal Consultant
IBM Champion for Data & AI
IBM Gold Consultant
Mullins Consulting, Inc.
15 Coventry Ct
Sugar Land, TX 77479
Tel: 281‐494‐6153
Twitter: @craigmullins
E‐mail: craig@craigsmullins.com
http://www.mullinsconsulting.com
This document is protected under the copyright laws of the United States and other countries as an unpublished work. This document contains information that is proprietary and
confidential to Mullins Consulting, Inc., which shall not be disclosed outside or duplicated, used, or disclosed in whole or in part for any purpose other than as approved by Mullins
Consulting, Inc. Any use or disclosure in whole or in part of this information without the express written permission of Mullins Consulting, Inc. is prohibited.
© 2020 Craig S. Mullins and Mullins Consulting, Inc. (Unpublished). All rights reserved.