An inherently challenging and competitive market demands that organizations accelerate their business transformation and advance their technologies. Data has become the most critical business asset for innovation, yet many companies have long been physically and technically constrained by traditional on-premises database management systems (DBMS). These old-school machines and on-premises data centres lack the performance and flexibility required for rapid growth.
As enterprises look to build new applications, they can choose to build them on the clunky databases of yesteryear, but most organizations choose to build new applications in the cloud. Cloud database usage has exploded in recent years due to greater performance and efficiency compared to traditional databases. While on-premises databases still represent a significant share of DBMS, it is expected that soon over 75% of databases will be migrated to the cloud in the next few years.
However, moving to the cloud isn’t the goal, but rather a means to an end. The goal is growth, and companies looking to grow need to think very carefully about their dast strategies, and the platforms on which they build new applications.
The difference in cloud database solutions
Legacy databases such as Oracle, MySQL and DB2 are no longer cost-effective nor technically superior. Open source technologies such as Postgres (also known as PostgreSQL) have caught up technologically, and are poised to surpass the legacy databases due to the vast amount of innovation taking place in the community. One of the big advantages of this technology is that it can run on any cloud, or multiple hybrid clouds in the same way, and the ability to run in a multi-cloud environment is critical to modern data resilience.
Still, it is important to understand that lifting the limitations of legacy databases is more complex than simply moving data to the cloud. New cloud vendors often are data centre infrastructure and hardware experts, rather than database specialists. Similarly, what organization leaders might not realize when migrating to a managed database service is that they are giving up control over how their database is configured and operated. For many businesses, these cloud options end up being too restrictive or pose technical challenges that impact their business decisions.
Organizations poised for growth need innovation in cloud database services to get the right access, support and protection for critical applications in the cloud.
Open-source cloud solutions: Harnessing growth for organizations
Organizations deserve and demand greater ownership and control of their data. Being locked into expensive contracts no longer makes sense when there’s a strong open source option. This freedom and flexibility are essential when growing quickly.
Compared to cloud service providers, open source technologies like Postgres, are inherently more affordable because the development costs are spread across a global community, enabling solutions that are significantly more cost-effective. Technically speaking, the Postgres license is extremely permissive and allows customers to use every cloud, every deployment technology, every virtualization method and every storage technology.
Postgres outperforms other databases in the most critical contexts including technical performance, flexibility and applicability across the broadest number of enterprise workloads and value. Open source is at the heart of this.
Extreme high availability and data continuity
With valuable data spread across multiple servers and geographic locations comes risks with database availability. Conversely, combining the open source power of Postgres with cloud flexibility means that even the most demanding industry verticals can count on their data wherever and wherever they need it most. Postgres replication and extremely high availability ensure that databases are “always on” and operating. This is particularly relevant for business verticals such as financial services and telecommunications where database downtime is unacceptable. Furthermore, cloud environments support the full data lifecycle, meaning they can seamlessly connect operational data and analytical data in a unified environment.
Business agility and database compatibility
Developers need the freedom to spend their time building new applications but often their expertise is wasted worrying about tedious issues such as maintenance or capacity management. Cloud solutions can simplify and automate these types of timely tasks and allow scale-up and scale-down provisions based on the user load, which helps developers and organizations tailor their needs and stay agile.
Perhaps the most daunting aspect of cloud adoption is the process of migrating applications from legacy systems—but it doesn’t have to be something organizations fear. Business leaders should look for a vendor that supports open source tooling while delivering database compatibility products that make the transition painless and smooth. For instance, Postgres supports more APIs, add-ons, environments and applications than any other database. This extensible data model, together with the ability to run on every cloud, enables Postgres developers to be enormously productive and innovative—not to mention that more developers love, use and want Postgres more than any other database.
Final Takeaway
We may still be in the early days of cloud migrations, but organizations require the flexibility and performance that cloud solutions offer. Regardless of where a company is on its cloud journey, business leaders can find greater accessibility and flexibility with their data through open source databases like Postgres, running in the cloud. Cloud environments combined with the power of Postgres enable organizations to improve data continuity, firm up security measures and run complex applications with greater ease.
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