Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2019. Read them in this 11th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
Contributed by Oren Eini, CEO
and founder of Hibernating Rhinos
Improving database infrastructure to overcome development, privacy and security challenges
2018 was a year of continuous
learning for professionals working in enterprise tech. Following a tumultuous
trip around the sun filled with outages on
major cloud
platforms and massive security and privacy debates, technology
professionals are ready to say goodbye to this year and look ahead to greener
pastures.
As such, 2019 must
be a time for businesses to look back on the events that took place in the last
year and make them into lessons learned, starting with their central command -
the database. With data being produced, analyzed and stored at exponential
rates (thanks to the growing technological ecosystem), the database is perhaps
the most crucial element in overcoming - and preventing - similar outages and
data breaches in the coming year.
1. The move to microservices will require more businesses
to go multi-model.
While microservices aren't
necessarily a new concept, the way
businesses approach them in terms of database infrastructure and technology is.
With a growing need for speed when it comes to application development - and
the mass adoption of DevOps processes as a result - the demand to segment the
different functions of an application is on the rise (hence the term
microservices). However, many businesses have struggled to fully embrace
microservices due to their current monolithic stack.
In 2019, businesses will
embrace a multi-model approach that enables them to address each function, or service,
as best as they can. By making use of relational models for their financing,
document for their orders, graph for recommendations and time series for events,
organizations can get the best out of both SQL and NoSQL data solutions. A
multi-model strategy gives professionals the chance to see what a new way of
looking at data can do for them, the applications they build and their
organization as a whole.
2. IT will put the lockdown on unstructured data.
While IT
professionals have made major headway when it comes to data management, the
rise in unstructured data continues to be a challenge. And what's driving this
rise? IoT and connected devices entering the enterprise. With everyone from
Google to small businesses feeling the pressure of database security breaches,
IT professionals must finally put additional safeguards on their unstructured
data.
To overcome this, databases
must provide additional protections like not allowing an application to release
data to the pubic unless it is secured. It's an obvious fix, but you would be
surprised how many security disasters have emanated from a developer disabling
all locks to develop the application and then forgetting to enable them once it
goes to production. In 2019, businesses must focus their efforts on ensuring
these locks are secure - especially after the application goes public.
3. Databases will become "compliant-ready."
With the enormous pressure put on businesses from new
compliance standards like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR),
coupled with increasing large-scale data breaches at major organizations like
Facebook and Google, companies must be laser-focused on better protecting their
data, monitoring who is using it and where it is going.
To overcome these issues, databases must get better at event
processing - especially keeping better logs tracking who is accessing data,
when they're accessing, how they're accessing it and why. Technology
professionals should look to implement more fine-tuned "Extract, Transform and
Load" (ETL) functions, in which privately held data will not be transferred
from one database to another without knowledge or approval of the right people.
Without enabling the right policies and processes, regulations like HIPPA and
GDPR will subject organizations to lawsuits, fines and additional penalties by
governments.
##
About the Author
Oren Eini, CEO and founder of Hibernating
Rhinos, has more than 20 years of experience in the development
world with a strong focus on the Microsoft and .NET ecosystem. Recognized as
one of Microsoft's Most Valuable Professionals since 2007, Oren is also the
author of "Inside
RavenDB." He frequently speaks at industry conferences such as
DevTeach, JAOO, QCon, Oredev, NDC, Yow! and Progressive.NET. An avid blogger,
you can also find him under his pseudonym as Ayende Rahien at http://www.ayende.com/Blog/.