Data strategies will be more important than ever for companies in 2023.
With overwhelming increases in information generation, the cloud, and innovative technologies, these will now be key focuses for database managers—all while budgets continue to be threatened by an uncertain economy.
To build and maintain exciting applications customers love while increasing the bottom line, companies need to plan, adapt, and execute effective plans for their data and databases. Those who can’t sort through key data, process it, and derive valuable, actionable insights will struggle.
Considering the continuous increase in the value and volume of data in today’s digital era, if organisations want to gain a competitive edge, they will likely turn to observability, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) while finding cost-effective ways to upscale their infrastructure.
Cloud-Hosted Databases Are the Future
Over the last few years, the amount of information enterprises have collected and generated has exploded (2.5 quintillion bytes are created every day), and there are no signs of this slowing. To accommodate this rapid growth and implement strategies to effectively manage, analyse, and gain intelligence from the information, organisations will likely invest in cloud-hosted database services.
Cloud-based solutions aren’t constrained by the same operational or technical requirements as on-premises data centers, making them more scalable and capable of storing and processing ever-expanding amounts of data. When managed well, they’re also generally more cost-effective and enable improved performance across an organisation’s tech stack. Cloud providers cut the maintenance and upkeep associated with physical data centers and regularly update their technology for the end user’s benefit, ensuring the stable availability of services.
As a result, 2023 will be the first year cloud-based data services and storage will generate more revenue than their on-premises competitors. This might sound like a death knell for on-premises data centers, but don’t write off physical solutions just yet.
On-Premises Solutions Continue to Be Relevant
Despite rapid growth and enthusiasm for cloud services, in the face of a potentially challenging economic environment, budgetary constraints may force some organisations to slow their investments in the technology. Though studies have shown companies can save in the long run by migrating to the cloud, the immediate costs can be expensive.
Due to inflationary factors, some cloud service vendors are also raising prices for their pay-as-you-go models, putting additional pressure on end users. These budgetary
constraints—coupled with rising costs—will ensure on-premises providers continue to play a key role.
Beyond costs, the simple truth is not all database workloads perform better in the cloud. Some perform better in data centers, and migrating to the cloud may break what doesn’t need fixing. With many organisations likely still wary of security concerns and misconfigurations associated with migrating databases to the cloud, on-premises solutions will continue to play a role in 2023.
How Observability Boosts Efficiency
In 2023—whether they choose to store their data in the cloud or in data centers—organisations will inevitably have concerns related to cost, productivity, and efficiency. Next year, observability will increasingly serve as a critical source of relief, helping businesses optimise their data operations and ease related concerns.
Over the last several years, observability has evolved. The market now has a better understanding of what observability is and the value it delivers, which has led to increased adoption. Modern observability offerings provide single-pane-of-glass visibility into organisations’ IT environments and databases, whether they leverage on-premises, hybrid, or multi-cloud infrastructures for their data needs. With observability, teams can discover, map, and understand their data estate, making it easier to ensure data is available, operations and applications are working efficiently, and business is getting done.
In 2023, AI- and ML-powered observability solutions—including those capable of layering directly into cloud hyperscaler technology—will play a more pivotal role in helping database teams simplify their complex environments to optimise performance and reduce costs.
Innovation Is the Key to Unlocking Deep Learning
As technology innovations continue to scale, AI and ML use cases grow every day. To effectively leverage these exciting new advancements, tech teams must ensure their organisations’ database management solutions are of the highest quality—the data is the most critical aspect of a successful ML project.
The next evolution of AI, ML, and deep learning (which is designed to mirror the way humans acquire knowledge) is already on the horizon (studies show the global market will grow to US$526 billion by 2030) and will be powered by database evolution. These deep learning advancements will require more optimised databases with near-zero latency, almost unlimited throughput, and scalable processing power.
In 2023, companies who prioritise innovation will undoubtedly look for opportunities to advance with more robust and efficient databases. In turn, these powerful databases will allow companies to reach new heights of innovation and address some of the world’s most critical issues. These databases will offer new possibilities for impactful change in healthcare, robotics, energy, and various other emerging fields.
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Cullen Childress is the group vice president of product at SolarWinds. He has deep knowledge and experience founding software startups and leading innovative and successful software product groups at scale. Prior to SolarWinds, he was the head of product at Atlassian and global VP of product management at Groupon. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics and an MBA from The University of Texas at Austin.
