Top 5 reasons for choosing a managed service for your database
In recent years the move to outsource IT or business processes has really taken hold. There are definite benefits to outsourcing all or part of an organisations’ database management systems.
Access to specialised resources which may not be available or are in short supply internally is a major factor.
Rather than outsourcing lock stock and barrel, organisations can look to supplement their internal resources with niche technical skills for interim staffing, ad-hoc consultancy or even just as an “insurance policy” back-up. Specialist service providers bring insight into how other companies are solving their business problems.
These are the top 5 reasons we see from our customers for choosing to outsource all or part of their DB2 database support:
# 1 Cost – In a tough economic environment, IT budgets are static or reducing. People continue to consume an increasing proportion of the IT budget. This is especially true for highly skilled staff such as database administrators.
# 2 Cover – High or continuous availability is a common requirement for today’s “on demand” IT Systems and this can put pressure on small or overstretched DBA teams. Even without a 24×7 support requirement there can be issues with cover when holiday, sickness or maternity and paternity leave is considered.
# 3 Proactive vs Reactive – DBA’s are often caught up in different projects or need to spend time on non-core functions which means that the vital monitoring and management of the database has to be sidelined. Overworked DBA teams may not have time to proactively monitor the database. Instead, only reacting once a problem has occurred and business users are already feeling the effects.
# 4 Keeping up-to-date – it is increasingly difficult for DBAs and the organisations they work for to keep up to date with the latest database technologies. Database software is becoming more complex and takes years to master. Training is not only costly in terms of the price but also in time, with key DBA staff needing time out of the office.
# 5 Database Versions – Sometimes customers are forced to stay on older, unsupported database releases. Skills for these older versions are hard to come by and lack of vendor support can mean a significant risk to the business.
Our team eats and sleeps DB2 and there’s no issue or challenge that we haven’t seen before! Take a look at our top 10 DB2 support issues.