OpenStack Trove will change the database management mode from five aspects (1)

OpenStack Trove will change the database management mode from five aspects (1)

As a database-as-a-service framework for OpenStack, Trove lays the foundation for automated configuration and management of several major SQL databases and NoSQL databases.

Today, the IT department of enterprises is facing an unprecedented challenge: to provide more and better services, improve flexibility, reduce operating costs, and at the same time ensure that there will be no security leaks.

Speaking of data and databases, this challenge is particularly prominent. Many of the major IT challenges often come from dealing with an increasing number of data and transactions, ensuring that these systems are scalable. To meet these goals, many companies continue to invest a considerable portion of their IT budget in database-related aspects: Faster hardware and new software licenses and skilled database administrators.

The database-as-a-service (DBaaS) technology brings great hopes and helps to cope with many of these data challenges. In general, DBaaS provides customers with a self-help method to quickly select, configure, and run data management infrastructure in a secure, scalable, and reliable manner.

For example, Amazon public cloud (AWS) provides various services for DBaaS, including Relational Database Service (RDS), NoSQL Database Service DynamoDB, data warehouse service Redshift, and cloud-oriented memory cache service ElastiCache.

In the private cloud, Trove, a part of the OpenStack DBaaS Project, provides a set of unified infrastructure to manage many different cloud database technologies. Trove enables IT professionals to configure and manage a wide range of relational and non-relational databases with consistent interfaces: mySQL, Percona Server, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, Couchbase, and Redis.

How does DBaaS change enterprise IT?

Over a decade or so, the IT department has watched its users be attracted by the low-cost and ubiquitous solutions provided by the public cloud. You can use these services quickly and easily by swiping your credit card. Because public cloud services are so convenient to use, people who use these services often work without the guidance of the IT department. It is difficult to implement enterprise governance for internal customers who use the public cloud.

Public cloud also provides many options for the services it provides. For example, Amazon and third parties provide a large number of database services on AWS. Providing the same number of options poses a challenge to IT staff because they cannot have expertise in every conceivable database technology.

Using OpenStack Trove's DBaaS gives IT departments the opportunity to provide more database options while enhancing flexibility and security. The following describes how DBaaS manages databases in five ways:

1. Best practices for significantly reducing costs.

A private cloud DBaaS solution such as OpenStack Trove provides enterprises with a flexible solution that can be deployed securely while complying with enterprise governance and data security systems. Trove provides a wide range of database technologies and uses easy-to-use and pre-packaged configurations. Since the best practices for using their own database technology are integrated into these configurations, IT staff do not need to have all technical expertise.

Standardized configuration helps to ensure data integrity and security while reducing support costs. DBaaS runs in IT infrastructure and provides many functions that help ease the management of services, such as automated backup, automated upgrade and Patch Management, and self-healing.

2. Speed up configuration and reduce waiting time.

In the view of IT customers in enterprises, DBaaS significantly enhances flexibility. The days when I applied for a database server and waited for weeks or even months to configure the server are long gone. Now, you just need a few clicks to get a fully-configured database server!

In addition, DBaaS not only provides a pre-configured database server, but also provides comprehensive management services, allowing customers to make full use of the database, it also relies on infrastructure to ensure data integrity, security, and continuity. As the service runs in a private cloud environment, it can ensure that it complies with enterprise policies such as data retention and privacy.

3. It is easier to use new database technologies.

In the past few years, the database field has undergone significant changes. NoSQL and NewSQL solutions have brought new benefits in terms of scalability, availability, and flexible data modeling. In the past, developers were forced to use standard enterprise databases, or operate independently to manage any new database technology.

DBaaS allows IT customers to choose database technologies suitable for their specific use cases. MySQL may be a suitable solution in one scenario, but MongoDB may be a suitable solution in another scenario. The DBaaS solution allows you to select the appropriate database technology from the database service menu. At the same time, users can be assured that their deployment configurations have been reviewed by the IT department to ensure that they comply with industry best practices and enterprise policies.

4. More frequent attempts and faster innovation.

Although the benefits of rapid database configuration are quite large, IT customers can easily discard databases and configure new databases. It allows customers to try and quickly iterate to quickly come up with a suitable long-term solution without any unnecessary compromise.

5. Reduce the time and effort spent from the development environment to the production environment.

Finally, DBaaS provides a secure and simple method to help you transfer databases from the development environment to the production environment through the application development process. In the development phase, DBaaS can configure databases with low-cost configuration for development activities. As applications enter the production environment, DBaaS can smoothly reconfigure these databases for the production environment, with higher availability and performance.