12.19.16
DevOps is moving into the mainstream – that’s a major finding from a new survey by Redgate Software among SQL Server professionals. The State of Database DevOps Survey involved over 1,000 people from companies across the globe, and the respondents included database administrators, IT directors and developers.
Redgate is known for developing software for SQL Server, .NET and Azure, and the survey was conducted to discover the real adoption rates of DevOps practices, and how far the database is being included in the process.
The full survey will be published in the New Year, but three major findings have already emerged that cast a fresh light on how DevOps is viewed.
Firstly, nearly half (47%) of the companies in the survey have already adopted DevOps across some or all of their IT projects, and many more are preparing to follow them. Only a fifth of the respondents have no DevOps plans over the next two years.
Secondly, the main factor holding companies back from taking up DevOps is the lack of knowledge and skills in implementing it. This is surprising on the one hand, with the wealth of information that appears to exist about DevOps. It’s understandable in other ways, however, because unless you already practice DevOps, it’s hard to simply start doing it, particularly when there are cultural and organizational issues to overcome first.
Thirdly, the database brings its own challenges to DevOps. There are hurdles to synchronizing application and database changes, and differences between the ways application and database developers work.
When published, the complete survey will go into more detail about the frequency of database deployments, the drawbacks of siloed database development, and the drivers for including the database in the DevOps process.
“This is an important piece of work,” says Kate Duggan, Redgate Product Marketing Manager, “because it gives us a real picture of DevOps for the database. Given the number of respondents, as well as the range of companies and organizations they represent, it’s an accurate snapshot of the promise of DevOps for SQL Server professionals – and the challenges our customers face.”
Redgate intends to use the results of the survey to further refine its Database DevOps offering. Redgate software already has over 800,000 users worldwide, and 91% of companies in the Fortune 100 trust it.
“We’ve been enabling database DevOps for a long time with a suite of tools that plug into the existing application development stack so you can build, test and deploy databases alongside your app code,” Kate Duggan concludes. “With our products for provisioning, monitoring and backing up databases too, we’re now in a position where we can ensure we’re addressing the entire database lifecycle.”
