Redgate Software has publicly released its annual State of Database DevOps Report which shows some dramatic changes in IT as a direct result of the current pandemic. Nearly three quarters of organizations have now adopted DevOps in some form, cross-platform database use has risen markedly and, significantly, IT teams have remained remarkably productive despite working remotely.  

Forty-three percent of respondents to the survey that forms the basis of the report state their organizations have grown above or in line with expectations, 13% have seen neither growth nor a decline, and just 9% have seen a fall. In terms of productivity and performance, only 13% have seen a negative impact - and 80% agree that remote working will remain in the long term, with 63% agreeing it has increased their productivity.  

Now in its fifth year, the State of Database DevOps Report has become a benchmark that organizations can use to measure their own journey to DevOps and related practices against that of the wider business community. The highlights of this year's report, however, given that the survey behind it was conducted in November and December of 2020, indicate that IT thinking has moved further, faster, and perhaps more permanently than any previous year.  

As Jakub Lamik, Redgate Chief Product Officer, comments: "Last year catalyzed digital transformation initiatives across the globe. While challenging, this enabling of IT teams to collaborate disparately and remotely has fundamentally changed the way we now consider how we work. It helped to accelerate our understanding of the ways IT teams can cooperate and continue to develop applications and databases when taking a remote-first approach. That, in turn, has accelerated further the take-up of DevOps, the use of multiple database platforms for different use cases, and the move to the cloud."  

Seventy-four percent of organizations in the report are now taking a DevOps approach to development, compared to 47% when the report was first published five years ago. Equally important, a clear correlation between DevOps adoption and software delivery performance has emerged, with high performers able to release both application and database changes faster, more frequently, and with fewer errors.  

Alongside this, only 30% of organizations are now using one database platform compared to 38% in 2020. Twenty-six percent have two databases, and nearly half of respondents use three or more databases. Another marked development is the increase in the move to the cloud, which reverses a small decrease seen in last year's report. Fifty-eight percent now use the cloud either wholly or in combination with on-premises, compared to 46% in 2020, and 51% in 2019.  

The majority of respondents, 84%, also expect the budget for database management and tooling to stay at least the same or increase in the next 12 months, indicating the importance of it within the overall IT strategy.  

As Jakub Lamik concludes: "The rise of DevOps for both application and database development helped mitigate many of the challenges organizations faced as part of their digital transformation journeys. It enabled IT teams to remain productive even when working remotely, and encouraged them to explore new database platforms, both on-premises and in the cloud. We expect the biggest challenges for 2021 will be to manage the diversity of systems across different teams, while building on the past successes and greater level of maturity."  

The 2021 State of Database DevOps Report was based on a survey of more than 3,000 developers, database specialists and IT professionals from North and South America, Europe, Russia, Africa, Asia, and Australia and New Zealand. The full report, which includes a foreword from Pramod Sadalage, Director at ThoughtWorks, can be downloaded from redgate.com/DevOpsReport.