Skip to main content

Use of Database Monitoring Tools Rises to Record High

Over three quarters (79%) of database professionals are now using either a paid-for or in-house monitoring tool, according to a new survey from Redgate Software.

This is an increase of 10 percentage points from the same survey last year and, at the same time, the 86% satisfaction rate with paid-for monitoring tools is also an all-time high, up 18 percentage points on the previous year.

The increase is partly down to the ongoing growth and complexity of database estates, with IDC predicting the installed base of storage capacity will increase by 240% between 2021 and 2025, and virtually every business sector seeing a big shift to the cloud.

It's also, however, down to the changing demands from organizations, with the survey showing they expect the efficiency and performance of growing estates to be maintained, security and compliance concerns to be fully addressed, and the visibility of monitoring data to be widened beyond Database Administrators (DBAs) to developers and IT teams.

This in turn, increases the pressure on DBAs, with many reporting they are expected to do more with less. Hence the rise in the use of database monitoring tools, which appear to reduce frustration, save time and allow DBAs to focus their efforts on contributing value to the business elsewhere.

As Kathi Kellenberger, Microsoft Data Platform MVP and editor of the technical journal for data professionals, Simple Talk, explains: "While a DBA could be responsible for just one SQL Server instance, typically it's dozens and could be thousands too. Without a good monitoring tool in place, the DBA will constantly be putting out fires instead of learning about and taking advantage of new features, tuning poorly performing queries, planning for new systems and contributing to more worthwhile projects."

A good monitoring tool can give a DBA and the wider IT team a single pane of glass to watch for issues on all the SQL Server instances they manage, both on-premises and in the cloud, provide alerts when problems do arise, and drill down to the cause in minutes rather than the hours it would take with manual monitoring.

Methodology: The fourth global State of Database Monitoring Survey was conducted in the summer of 2021 and received responses from over 2,500 IT professionals in every business sector.

Hot Topics

The Latest

As businesses increasingly rely on high-performance applications to deliver seamless user experiences, the demand for fast, reliable, and scalable data storage systems has never been greater. Redis — an open-source, in-memory data structure store — has emerged as a popular choice for use cases ranging from caching to real-time analytics. But with great performance comes the need for vigilant monitoring ...

Kubernetes was not initially designed with AI's vast resource variability in mind, and the rapid rise of AI has exposed Kubernetes limitations, particularly when it comes to cost and resource efficiency. Indeed, AI workloads differ from traditional applications in that they require a staggering amount and variety of compute resources, and their consumption is far less consistent than traditional workloads ... Considering the speed of AI innovation, teams cannot afford to be bogged down by these constant infrastructure concerns. A solution is needed ...

AI is the catalyst for significant investment in data teams as enterprises require higher-quality data to power their AI applications, according to the State of Analytics Engineering Report from dbt Labs ...

Misaligned architecture can lead to business consequences, with 93% of respondents reporting negative outcomes such as service disruptions, high operational costs and security challenges ...

A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...

Use of Database Monitoring Tools Rises to Record High

Over three quarters (79%) of database professionals are now using either a paid-for or in-house monitoring tool, according to a new survey from Redgate Software.

This is an increase of 10 percentage points from the same survey last year and, at the same time, the 86% satisfaction rate with paid-for monitoring tools is also an all-time high, up 18 percentage points on the previous year.

The increase is partly down to the ongoing growth and complexity of database estates, with IDC predicting the installed base of storage capacity will increase by 240% between 2021 and 2025, and virtually every business sector seeing a big shift to the cloud.

It's also, however, down to the changing demands from organizations, with the survey showing they expect the efficiency and performance of growing estates to be maintained, security and compliance concerns to be fully addressed, and the visibility of monitoring data to be widened beyond Database Administrators (DBAs) to developers and IT teams.

This in turn, increases the pressure on DBAs, with many reporting they are expected to do more with less. Hence the rise in the use of database monitoring tools, which appear to reduce frustration, save time and allow DBAs to focus their efforts on contributing value to the business elsewhere.

As Kathi Kellenberger, Microsoft Data Platform MVP and editor of the technical journal for data professionals, Simple Talk, explains: "While a DBA could be responsible for just one SQL Server instance, typically it's dozens and could be thousands too. Without a good monitoring tool in place, the DBA will constantly be putting out fires instead of learning about and taking advantage of new features, tuning poorly performing queries, planning for new systems and contributing to more worthwhile projects."

A good monitoring tool can give a DBA and the wider IT team a single pane of glass to watch for issues on all the SQL Server instances they manage, both on-premises and in the cloud, provide alerts when problems do arise, and drill down to the cause in minutes rather than the hours it would take with manual monitoring.

Methodology: The fourth global State of Database Monitoring Survey was conducted in the summer of 2021 and received responses from over 2,500 IT professionals in every business sector.

Hot Topics

The Latest

As businesses increasingly rely on high-performance applications to deliver seamless user experiences, the demand for fast, reliable, and scalable data storage systems has never been greater. Redis — an open-source, in-memory data structure store — has emerged as a popular choice for use cases ranging from caching to real-time analytics. But with great performance comes the need for vigilant monitoring ...

Kubernetes was not initially designed with AI's vast resource variability in mind, and the rapid rise of AI has exposed Kubernetes limitations, particularly when it comes to cost and resource efficiency. Indeed, AI workloads differ from traditional applications in that they require a staggering amount and variety of compute resources, and their consumption is far less consistent than traditional workloads ... Considering the speed of AI innovation, teams cannot afford to be bogged down by these constant infrastructure concerns. A solution is needed ...

AI is the catalyst for significant investment in data teams as enterprises require higher-quality data to power their AI applications, according to the State of Analytics Engineering Report from dbt Labs ...

Misaligned architecture can lead to business consequences, with 93% of respondents reporting negative outcomes such as service disruptions, high operational costs and security challenges ...

A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...