Database Decisions: Performance, manageability and availability considerations in choosing a database

Transcription

1 Database Decisions: Performance, manageability and availability considerations in choosing a database Reviewing offerings from Oracle, IBM and Microsoft 2012 Oracle and TechTarget

2 Table of Contents Defining Business Value Delivering Business Value Oracle vs. IBM Oracle vs. Microsoft Conclusion Oracle and TechTarget

3 Information technology is once again providing the opportunity for dramatic change in how organizations conduct and even define their businesses. Initiatives such as virtualization, cloud computing and big data analytics are enabling organizations to achieve levels of agility and responsiveness that were inconceivable even a few years ago. IDC talks about the IT industry s next dominant platform, as defined by the combination of cloud services, big data, social networking and mobile computing. Gartner says cloud, social networking, mobility and information management are converging into a unified set of forces shaping almost every IT-related decision. At the heart of all this change and opportunity is the database. None of these opportunities becomes reality without a robust, reliable, scalable, flexible, manageable and high-performing database. Not the cloud, not big data analytics, not the shi to a more dynamic, integrated and agile business. While a lot of variables go into choosing a database, for database and infrastructure architects in this environment, with so much at stake, the decision about which platform to choose will o en come down to this: Which database delivers the best value to my business? Defining Business Value What are the key characteristics database architects should be looking for in order to help define the best value to my business? Certain criteria will probably be obvious: During a time of potentially significant change in your infrastructure, you will want the platform that is the most complete, open and integrated because that is the database that will give you the greatest flexibility for adopting change and in enabling employees and staff to adapt to change. You will also want the database that is the most robust and reliable for mission-critical enterprise applications Oracle and TechTarget

4 It is also critical to choose a database that gives you maximum flexibility and performance in the building of cloud infrastructures. Cloud computing enables IT to move toward a more services-oriented compute environment, where business decision-makers have the opportunity to build and create new business solutions through self-service models. e business value in achieving this type of agility can pay off in improved competitive advantage, reduced time to market for new products and services, and ultimately, increased revenue and profitability. Another major consideration in defining business value is costs. One of the reasons why virtualization and cloud computing have become defining trends in this era is because they enable IT to do more with less. Consolidation remains one of the most important strategies for IT organizations, and when you think about your database investment, you want to choose a solution that not only reduces costs now, but also establishes a foundation that will continue to enable future cost savings in ongoing management, infrastructure purchases, consolidation, and IT productivity and personnel. To fulfill the potential of an agile infrastructure that reduces costs, increases consolidation and enables the deployment of cloud solutions, you will need to evaluate your database decision on these three critical criteria: Performance: e amount of data that must be managed is growing significantly, and databases today are handling different types of data, particularly the massive increase in unstructured data. Performance can t degrade with this growth, and in delivering solutions for business intelligence, data warehousing, big data and other critical initiatives, database performance must be an enabler, not a bottleneck. Availability: Businesses today operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week and cannot afford any downtime, planned or unplanned: e average cost of a single minute of downtime is $5,600, according to research from the Ponemon Institute. In a cloud environment, the entire business may be dependent on the Oracle and TechTarget

5 database being available. Availability is not measured just in downtime it s availability of applications, analytics and real-time actionable information that gives the organization the ability to react to opportunity with speed and agility. Simplified Manageability: Data centers and infrastructures tend to grow somewhat haphazardly, with hardware, applications and databases o en deployed in response to critical needs. is has led to infrastructures being both bloated and complex. In choosing a database platform for the future, organizations have an opportunity to reduce this complexity by focusing on a single platform, particularly one that supports open standards and simplified integration with existing infrastructures. It is also an opportunity to choose a platform from the leading vendor that provides integrated and open solutions for your next-generation infrastructure. Delivering Business Value When it comes to the critical issues of performance, availability and manageability, database solutions from leading vendors Oracle, IBM and Microso deliver varying degrees of business value for today s environment. Oracle has proven itself time and again as the dominant industry leader in the database market and with its newest release is again the leading database platform in delivering a complete, open and highly integrated solution. In this paper, we will review the latest database solution from Oracle in terms of performance, manageability and availability, and compare the Oracle offering with competitive solutions from IBM and Microso. 1. Performance With Database 11g Release 2, Oracle delivers a wide range of innovations that enable organizations to improve mission-critical system performance while significantly reducing server costs and storage requirements. One of the biggest advantages of Oracle Database 11g Release 2 is that it enables organizations to achieve dramatic Oracle and TechTarget

6 performance improvements from hardware resources already in place, while also supporting ongoing consolidation and cost containment efforts. Here are some of the specific ways in which Oracle Database 11g Release 2 enables significant performance improvements. Oracle Real Application Clusters: Oracle RAC is a cluster database with a shared architecture that enables low-cost commodity servers to work together in a single shared database grid or a private cloud. It is a key component of Oracle s private cloud architecture, allowing organizations to allocate resources within a private cloud to different server pools. Oracle RAC One Node is a new option available with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 that allows organizations to consolidate small and medium-scale databases onto a private cloud so they get the performance benefits of Oracle RAC, including cluster failover, rolling upgrades of hardware and so ware, and the ability to move a database between servers in a private cloud. Oracle Exadata Database Machine: Oracle provides a complete database package that includes all the hardware, storage, networking and so ware to deliver extreme database performance for online transaction processing, data warehousing and mixed loads. With Oracle Exadata, organizations can improve performance of all applications, while reducing IT costs through consolidation. IT is able to eliminate systems integration trial and error, which translates to faster time to market and improved real-time decision-making for the business. Another factor in improved performance in the Oracle Exadata Database Machine is the incorporation of Oracle Exadata Storage Servers, which provide a high-bandwidth, massively parallel storage solution that delivers up to 500GB per second of raw I/O bandwidth and up to 1 million I/O operations per second. With Oracle Database 11g Release 2, query processing is pushed to the Oracle Exadata Storage Servers, which has enabled business users to realize performance that is 10 times faster when executing large database queries Oracle and TechTarget

7 Oracle In-Memory Database Cache: is is an option that improves performance by allowing data to be cached in the memory of the applications themselves, offloading data processing functions to the application tier. With this feature, individual transactions can be executed up to 10 times faster through the elimination of network latency between the application tier and back-end database. is is particularly valuable in applications that require very high rates of transaction processing. Advanced Compression: Organizations using Oracle Database 11g Release 2 can take advantage of advanced compression capabilities and an increase in server memory across a cloud of low-cost servers. A large compressed table or a smaller uncompressed table can be automatically distributed into the available memory across all of the servers in a cloud. Parallel query processing is localized to the data in the memory of the individual nodes, which significantly improves query performance. 2. Availability Downtime, planned or unplanned, is anathema to most businesses these days. We are in a world where customers are expecting access 24/7 and business activities never stop. Any downtime can be extremely expensive to the business in terms of lost revenue, lost productivity and potential damage to brand. As noted, a single minute of downtime costs an average of $5,600 and nearly double that for organizations such as telecommunications companies, cloud services and e-commerce companies, which depend on the data center s ability to deliver networking and IT services to customers. Oracle provides an integrated set of high-availability solutions as part of Oracle Database 11g Release 2. ese features include Real Application Clusters, Data Guard, Automatic Storage Management, Flashback, Recovery Manager, Online Oracle and TechTarget

8 Reorganization and Edition-based Redefinition, among others. e high-availability capabilities offered through these features work in an integrated manner to reduce or eliminate both planned and unplanned downtime. In addition to these features, Oracle offers the Oracle Maximum Availability Architecture (MAA), which is a best practices blueprint for delivering high availability involving the entire technology stack, including servers, storage, networks, applications and databases. By following the blueprint delineated by MAA, organizations can reduce the cost and complexity of their high-availability deployments, while building a high-availability architecture that is optimized for their Oracle environment. Here is how some of these features and functions deliver high availability for Oracle customers: Oracle Real Application Clusters: Oracle RAC enables multiple nodes to access the same database, so that if one node goes down, the database and the application it is running will continue to be available. is provides protection from failure as well as additional scalability for business applications: Additional nodes can be added simply and easily to clusters, and the application can be load-balanced across all of the available nodes. Data Guard: Oracle Data Guard is built into Oracle Database 11g Release 2 and provides the management, monitoring and automation so ware to create and maintain one or more standby databases. It delivers low-cost synchronization between production and standby databases, protecting organizations from lost data due to failures, disasters, human error and data corruption. Oracle Active Data Guard enables reporting and backup operations to be offloaded from production to standby systems Oracle and TechTarget

9 Edition-based Redefinition: With this feature, organizations can make changes to program code in the privacy of a new edition within the database, separated from the current production edition. is helps eliminate planned downtime by allowing both old and new production environments to be used at the same time for testing while allowing users to be moved online from one edition to the other. Oracle Maximum Availability Architecture: Oracle MAA uses redundant components to protect against unplanned downtime while also improving the performance and efficiency of the production system. On-disk backup and recovery areas allow backup and recovery operations to be automated. e same integrated so ware used to perform on-disk backup and recovery can also be applied to tape backup and cloud backup. With Oracle MAA, any hardware component in an Oracle grid or private cloud can be dynamically added or removed. Security: Security is an important component of high availability. Oracle Database 11g Release 2 delivers a wide range of in-depth security features, including data encryption and masking, access controls, high fidelity auditing and reporting, enterprise configuration scanning and data change forensics. Oracle Configuration Management Pack provides more than 240 policies that implement and monitor best practices around security management, configuration and storage for all Oracle databases within an enterprise. Oracle Audit Vault provides a secure, centralized vault of audit information collected from multiple databases, including some non-oracle databases. Oracle Total Recall saves all changes made to data to provide a complete change history. Oracle Advanced Security can be used to transparently encrypt data at all levels, including data in transit, at rest on physical storage or in backups Oracle and TechTarget

10 3. Simplified Manageability Reducing data center complexity is one of the critical challenges facing IT and database professionals in this shi to a next-generation computing paradigm. In a survey of top executives by A.T. Kearney a couple of years ago, IT complexity was cited as the most significant IT barrier to business growth, followed closely by IT departments being too slow to respond to changes and spending too much time on day-to-day activities. As noted by the research: Technology must be flexible enough to meet the changing needs of the business providing cost-effective applications, data and processes while being intricate enough to help the company meet the challenges necessary for growth. With Database 11g Release 2, Oracle has taken significant steps to reduce IT complexity while enabling organizations to not only effect change in operations, but embrace change. As a self-managing database, Oracle Database 11g Release 2 is able to automatically monitor, diagnose and tune itself, saving database administrators significant time and effort while helping the organization scale quickly to address new applications and services. is is particularly important in cloud environments, where organizations need to provide shared resources that enable them to get to market quickly with new products and services. According to Oracle, Database 11g Release 2 takes 50 percent less time to manage than previous releases. Oracle has also made it faster and simpler to upgrade with its latest release, and has significantly reduced the development effort required to upgrade, test and verify an application. Oracle s self-management approach is built on two principles: Oracle and TechTarget

11 1. High Levels of Automation: With Oracle Database 11g Release 2, Oracle has fully automated every possible task that is repeatable, labor-intensive and/or error-prone. For instance, functions such as storage management, memory management, statistics collection, backup and recovery, and SQL tuning have all been automated. 2. Intelligent Advisors: Wherever operations cannot be fully automated, Oracle Database 11g Release 2 utilizes intelligent advisors that are built into the database to mentor DBAs on how to get the best out of their systems. Advisors are provided for configuration management, patching, indexing, partitioning, performance diagnostics, data recovery, compression and maximum availability. In addition to the highly automated/self-management approach Oracle has taken with Database 11g Release 2, there are several other ways in which Oracle has distinguished itself from the competition in terms of simplifying manageability. ese are: Real Application Testing: is is a feature that recognizes the need for organizations to effect system changes quickly and simply without impacting production environments. Hardware and so ware upgrades, configuration changes, and deployment of new services and applications are critical today for companies to deliver new cloud-based services as well as for compliance and security reasons. With Oracle Real Application Testing, organizations can assess the impact of system changes on real-world applications in test environments before deploying them in production environments. Oracle Exadata Database Machine: By delivering an entire database hardware/so ware solution prepackaged and preconfigured, the Oracle Exadata Database Machine introduces new levels of management simplicity to the data center. Organizations can achieve dramatic increases in productivity through the Oracle and TechTarget

12 use of an appliance, since all the configuration, testing and optimizing work has already been taken care of. is gives IT unprecedented speed in setting up infrastructures to support new applications and services. Again, this makes for an ideal platform for cloud deployments. Platform Standardization: Because it is the industry s leading open system platform, Oracle Database 11g Release 2 is an ideal solution for organizations looking to standardize on a single database platform. is will bring dramatic benefits to the organization, not just in simplifying manageability, but also in delivering maximum performance, consolidation, cost containment and availability. By standardizing on Oracle Database 11g Release 2, organizations can take advantage of a single, coherent and integrated solution for their entire data management platform, while still having support for all major third-party applications. Oracle vs. IBM Oracle remains the dominant market share leader in the database market with nearly 50 percent market share. IBM is a distant second with about 20 percent market share. In looking at performance, costs and manageability, independent research firm ORC International set up multiple laboratories and ran multiple tests to compare Oracle Database 11g Release 2 against IBM DB2 Enterprise 9.7. e results, released in a research report in June 2011, revealed significant time and resource savings when using the Oracle database versus the IBM database. ese are among the findings concluded by the study: Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition resulted in an overall 43 percent time savings when compared with IBM DB2 Enterprise Database Manageability and Productivity Cost Comparison Study: Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Vs. IBM DB2 Enterprise 9.7, ORC International, June Oracle and TechTarget

13 Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition resulted in an overall 45 percent step/complexity savings when compared with IBM DB2 Enterprise 9.7. Based on a productivity savings of 43 percent, time savings amounted to $51,600 (U.S. dollars) per year per DBA for an Oracle Database 11g Release 2 DBA versus an IBM DB2 Enterprise 9.7 DBA. According to the ORC International research, the two areas that had the greatest manageability differences between the two products were 1) backup and data recovery, and 2) performance tuning tasks. e Oracle solution exceeded the IBM solution by an average of 44 percent in time saved in these two areas and required on average 39 fewer steps, resulting in much less complexity. Other conclusions and observations: Both platforms are Java-based and can be run on virtually any operating system. IBM DB2 Enterprise 9.7 clients are locally based to each client machine, rather than run from the database itself. is requires a separate installation of manageability functions onto each client machine. Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Database Control (the management console) is browser-based, which means it can be run from any location and any computer with connectivity to Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition server. IBM DB2 Enterprise 9.7 also has several tools, which are all accessible from each management tool via the toolbar included in each application. Although navigation is consistent between each tool, the IBM Database introduces a level of complexity that can result in confusion about which tool to use for a given task and can lead to lost productivity. Both products provide sufficient tools for a DBA to complete frequent and infrequent tasks efficiently. In the area of high availability, Oracle s suite of solutions and the availability of Oracle MAA give Database 11g Release 2 significant advantages versus IBM DB2 Enterprise 9.7. e key high-availability areas in which Oracle s solutions are superior to IBM s are outlined below. For a more complete analysis, read this Oracle and TechTarget

14 document: Technical Comparison, Oracle Database 11g Release 2 vs. IBM DB2 9.7: Focus on High Availability Addressing Unplanned Downtime, such as system failures, data failures and disaster recovery, including disaster recovery data protection and availability as well as disaster recovery ROI. Addressing Human Errors, including data recovery, transaction recovery and point-in-time recovery. Addressing Unplanned Downtime, including system maintenance and data maintenance. Oracle vs. Microsoft Microso lags behind Oracle and IBM in market share and is generally regarded as the weakest competitor in terms of enterprise-class performance, scalability and high availability. For larger database applications and environments, such as those running databases of a terabyte or more, Oracle shows clear performance advantages over Microso. In addition to significant performance advantages, Oracle Database 11g Release 2 also delivers advantages in manageability and ease of deployment versus Microso. As with IBM, ORC International conducted a database manageability and productivity comparison between the Oracle and Microso database solutions, releasing the results of the study in January e research firm established testing labs to compare the two databases and a er conducting various tests concluded that organizations can save significant time and resource savings when using Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition versus Microso SQL Server 2008 Release 2 Enterprise Edition. Among the conclusions reached by ORC International: Oracle and TechTarget

15 Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition resulted in an overall 49 percent time savings when compared with SQL Server 2008 Release 2 Enterprise Edition. Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition resulted in an overall 46 percent step/complexity savings when compared with SQL Server 2008 Release 2 Enterprise Edition. Based on a productivity savings of 49 percent, time savings amounted to $58,000 per year per DBA for an Oracle Database 11g Release 2 DBA versus a SQL 2008 Server Release 2 DBA. ORC International also looked at the overall usability of tools, including the number of tools required to complete the tasks, and concluded as follows: Oracle Database 11g Release 2 can be run on virtually any operating system, including Linux, Unix or Windows. SQL Server 2008 Release 2 is solely Windows-based, and will not support installation on any other operating system, thereby raising the cost significantly for Unix or Linux server-based organizations. In order to manage a SQL Server 2008 Release 2 instance or database, additional client applications must be installed on the DBA s machine. Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Database Control (the management console) is browser-based, which means it can be run from any location and any computer with connectivity to Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition server. SQL Server 2008 Release 2 has several tools that make up the management and feature set of the SQL Server database. While many of the basic functions of each application can be accessed via the SQL Server Management Studio, to gain full power of each application, they must be launched separately. In some instances, these additional applications can be launched via a contextual Tools menu within SQL Server Management Studio; others require additional configuration as External Tools within the application itself. Oracle Database 11g 2 Database Manageability and Productivity Cost Comparison Study, Oracle Database 11g Release 2 vs. Microso SQL Server 2008 Release Oracle and TechTarget

16 Release 2 Diagnostics and Tuning Packs, though separately licensed, come preinstalled with the database kernel and therefore do not require any additional installation times from the DBA. In terms of availability and manageability, ORC International conducted a separate study comparing the Oracle Database Appliance versus Microso SQL Server. e research showed that a DBA would save 835 hours in the first year of system implementation using the Oracle Database Appliance rather than SQL Server, and 699 hours in each subsequent year of the system s life. Given these dramatic productivity savings, Oracle Database Appliance is a choice that makes sense for any organization looking to increase the availability of its databases, ORC International concluded. Conclusion ere is o en an expectation of inevitability when new technologies emerge and capture our imagination, and it becomes possible to visualize the dramatic ways in which they can change the way we do business and change the way we live our lives. But turning that vision into reality is about choices. IT departments today have an opportunity to build the foundation for a new future built around innovations such as cloud computing, big data and other interrelated megatrends. Building business value in this environment means creating maximum opportunity while reducing risk. In choosing a database vendor and platform to build this new future, IT and database decision-makers have a clear choice with a clear leader whose technological vision and solutions are several steps ahead of the competition. ink about the types of database solutions you require and then look at the innovative ways in which Oracle is leading the industry in addressing your need for performance, high availability and simplified manageability. Is there even any room for debate about which database brings the best value to your business? Oracle and TechTarget