Issue link: https://resources.awscloud.com/i/1496543
©2021 IDC #US47176821 2 databases must be set up and configured by DBAs and operations staff. This means that development teams must delay or consolidate projects, sometimes for weeks and even months. Analysts assigned to extract, organize, and analyze data for some short-term purpose, such as a marketing campaign, can't simply provision a database themselves; they need to wait for it to be provisioned and configured. By the time the database is provisioned, it may be too late to have any impact. Moving to the Cloud: What Does It Entail? Cost Comparison The costs associated with running databases on premises are often underestimated. A summary follows: ▪ Servers. Enterprise databases usually require dedicated servers. They are purchased on depreciation schedules of three to five years, so the server capacity is calculated based on the anticipated requirement for peak demand at the end of the depreciation period. ▪ Storage. Enterprise databases usually also require dedicated storage volumes because competing activity can slow performance. Again, they are purchased on a three- to five-year depreciation schedule and sized to meet the expected capacity requirement at the end of that period. ▪ Software. In addition to DBMS software licenses, licenses for various tools and utilities, and for data integration packages, may also be required, depending on the configuration. ▪ Standby servers and storage. In many cases, enterprises also provision standby servers and storage in case the production systems go down. They may also replicate the data from the production server to the standby server. This could as much as double the storage and server cost. ▪ Development/test systems. Some enterprises have dedicated development systems (servers and storage) for each database, while others require the sharing of resources. In any case, it is generally true that testing can be run for just one project at a time. ▪ Networking. Some DBMSs require special private networks such as Gigabit Ethernet connecting servers and storage. These must also be maintained. ▪ Staff. Sufficient full-time staff must be employed to maintain the servers and storage, perform routine maintenance on the software including the operating systems, oversee and manage backups, and so forth. This staff is in addition to the DBAs who build, tune, and maintain the databases. If the database is being run in a manually managed way using cloud resources, the cost factors are similar to those mentioned previously. Obviously, instead of acquiring infrastructure (servers, storage, and networking), one must pay for infrastructure services offered by the cloud services provider. Otherwise, however, the cost profile is very similar. Let's compare these costs with the costs of a managed database service in the cloud. Those costs include: ▪ A subscription fee for use of the managed database service — structured to fit your needs, usually with some fixed value and variability based on usage. The subscription fee covers the deployment and management of the database software, including patch management, and often also includes the provisioning of a failover database. Additional fees may be applied to databases that are provisioned and used only occasionally, such as test databases and those for special analytic projects, but in such cases, you only pay for what you use.