The All-Aboard Trip to the Cloud: 100% Move to Cloud Databases, Survey Shows Big Promise and Surprising Disagreement

90% say DBaaS would help them be more competitive and multicloud is a must-have

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., and HELSINKI – February 10, 2022 – MariaDB® Corporation today announced key findings from its Cloud Database Trends Survey that shows no one’s staying behind as businesses move forward with database migration to the cloud. Those surveyed included IT Heads, DBAs and software developers, all of whom had some responsibility for the selection and management of databases—and all said their business’ cloud database migration was in place, in progress or planned.

In fact, 61% of respondents surveyed claimed they were either already fully migrated or working to complete their full database migration to the cloud. More than a third, 36%, were partially migrated or working on a partial migration, with the remainder still planning their migration.

 

Key Cloud Benefits of Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) for Cloud Migration

When it came to the organizational benefits and business advantage of DBaaS, large majorities of survey respondents shared similar views:

  • 93% agreed that storing data across their organization in a single database helps with standardizing security protocols—notable since 85% of respondents use two or more databases
  • 88% agreed DBaaS would help their organization save money
  • 87% agreed that using DBaaS would help bridge the cloud skills gap

“As companies across all verticals face ongoing customer experience, cost and security challenges, there’s no question that an easy-to-use, always available, scalable cloud database is an important part of a strategic technical solution,” said Franz Aman, CMO of MariaDB Corporation. “SkySQL is capable of scaling to millions of transactions per second with ease, saving customers up to 90% of their legacy database cost.”

 

Some Stark Differences of Opinion Emerge Based on Respondent’s Job

Interestingly, respondents had starkly different views about security as a benefit—with 58% of IT Heads, including CTOs and CIOs, naming higher security as a benefit of migration, but only 22% of DBAs and 26% of developers agreeing with that.

Among 61% of companies who have completed or are working towards a full cloud migration in the next two years, 79% are planning to increase their investment in database management and operations. Respondents explained what’s most often driving investment, citing multiple reasons:

  • 45% cite increased data storage and processing needs
  • 43% cite increased demand for data analytics
  • 42% cite support for multiple different workloads

Again here, a role-based difference emerged. Among the 43% who cited an increased demand for data analytics as a driver of investment, 55% of IT Heads saw higher demand for analytics as key, but only 37% of DBAs and 29% of developers felt that way.

While 52% of IT Heads, including CTOs and CIOs, said database automation will give vendors an advantage, the figure dropped to 35% of DBAs and 26% of developers. A similar divide existed for flexibility and elasticity – 52% of IT Heads naming those, but only 28% of DBAs and 23% of developers, respectively. Finally, with customer support, the same kind of tension existed: 58% of IT Heads said it yielded a vendor advantage versus 22% of DBAs and 26% of developers.

 

Realities of DBaaS and Open Source Draw Consensus

Drilling down into other realities of the DBaaS in the context of cloud migration, sentiments were clear on the necessity of multicloud and the difficulty of managing ever-expanding volumes of data:

  • 90% agreed it’s essential to choose a database vendor who supports multicloud capabilities
  • 80% agreed that the data explosion makes having a powerful database more important than ever
  • 75% agreed that their organization generates loads of data but fails to use it to the fullest advantage

Contemplating open source databases, respondents expressed an open attitude in general:

  • 90% agreed that they would be interested in using an open source database to reduce costs
  • 83% agreed that they would be willing to use an open source database for a mission-critical project
  • 74% agreed that it’s frustrating when they can’t access the source code of their database

For a full look into the survey results, please visit https://bit.ly/3GFVJdx.

 

MariaDB’s Hybrid and Multicloud Capabilities Earn Recognition

MariaDB was named to the 2022 Constellation ShortList™ for Hybrid-Cloud and Multicloud Analytical Relational Database Management Systems, marking its second consecutive year of recognition. The technology vendors and service providers included in this program deliver critical transformation initiative requirements for early adopter and fast follower organizations. Products and services named to the Constellation ShortList meet the threshold criteria for this category as determined through client inquiries, partner conversations, customer references, vendor selection projects, market share and internal research.

 

About the Survey

The MariaDB 2021 Cloud Database Trends Survey, conducted in November, gathered opinions from 122 IT professionals who had a role in the selection and management of database services or database software at their companies at the time of survey, 90% of whom were from medium to large businesses. Respondents included: database administrators (DBAs) – 49%; database users (database developers and software engineers) – 25%; and CIOs, CTOs and other IT Heads – 25%.

 

Additional Resources

 

About MariaDB Corporation

MariaDB frees companies from the costs, cloud lock-in, constraints and complexity of proprietary databases, enabling them to reinvest in what matters most – rapidly developing innovative, customer-facing applications. MariaDB uses pluggable, purpose-built storage engines to support workloads that previously required a variety of specialized databases. With complexity and constraints eliminated, enterprises can now depend on a single complete database for their needs, whether on commodity hardware or their cloud of choice. Deployed in minutes for transactional, analytical or hybrid use cases, MariaDB delivers unmatched operational agility without sacrificing key enterprise features, including real ACID compliance and full SQL. Trusted by organizations such as Bandwidth, DigiCert, InfoArmor, Oppenheimer, Samsung, SelectQuote, SpendHQ – MariaDB meets the same core requirements as proprietary databases at a fraction of the cost. No wonder it’s one of the fastest growing database management systems companies. Real business relies on MariaDB™.