Hidden Costs of Supporting Open Source Databases – Craig Mackereth, Global Service Delivery

This is Textron tv. Hey guys, thanks for the throw. We're here with Craig Eth, who's executive Vice President for Global Service Delivery for Rimini Street.

And we're talking about open source databases and how well, like most things that are free, they get expensive over time, kind of like those puppies that we all know about. Craig, welcome to the show. Thanks very much.

Nice to be here. What is going on at the moment? Because I feel like, um, there's a proliferation of databases and types and people are supporting multiple, uh, ones from different vendors and different versions, and has this gotten a little bit outta control?

Is this too much of a good thing happening? I think the message is out there. People have realized that open source database is a fantastic strategic option.

Uh, but there's so many options, so many choices out there and absolutely proliferation throughout, uh, easy to, uh, to get up and running. But, uh, then there is a long-term cost to that as well. So it's very interesting time.

And what's led to this, my perception is that developers are kind of going out and using various types of databases that they're choosing, and then the application winds up in a production environment. And there may or may not be a D B A or there might be a DevOps team to support this thing, but eventually the weight of it becomes rather crushing. So how do we bring some mortar to the chaos?

So I think there's a couple of factors at play. It certainly is easy for people to pick up and start using, uh, tools that are effectively a peer free. Uh, but I think also there's a general wave across all of corporate IT to embrace not just the traditional software vendors, database products, and so to use more, uh, what might be seen as more modern solutions.

Uh, and so those two things combined, I think have led to what we're seeing today, which is a lot of different, uh, tools that are out there that people are using and now starting to use it in more production workloads as opposed to just for, you know, development playing around, uh, which is where you need proper support. There's a lot of sensitivity around cost these days where we see a wave of consolidation of these various databases. Or is that just too expensive and undertaking in the first place?

Uh, you know, there's, there's gonna be some consolidation for sure. I would definitely predict that. Uh, that's, that's been the case over over many years.

Uh, and there'll be some, some clear winners, uh, here in terms of, you know, those products that will stand the test of time, I think driven, uh, by, uh, a lot of deployment out in production. Uh, it's also gonna be led by the sort of skills you can get in the market and getting hold of top talent in this market. It can be very tough.

Uh, if you're looking for people that, uh, have really had real world experience with taking these systems to production, uh, then they can get expensive. Uh, those consultants are charging a, a hefty premium for that. So that background and experience today Somewhere, is there a A D B A in charge of all of this still?

Or are the databases kind of being run by the IT operations team? What happened to that D B A who I thought was bringing some, uh, adult supervision to this conversation? You were counting on the DBAs to bring adult supervision.

I I can hear DBAs all over the country laughing at that statement. Uh, look, you know, I think the DBAs are absolutely here to stay. And, you know, no matter what marketing you hear about, you know, autonomous databases or whatever, there's always A D B A who's the master of the domain behind the scenes.

Those DBAs are being asked to do a lot more to make sure that they're, again, getting these quote unquote new tools out there. Uh, and they're, they're put under a lot of pressure. So the DBAs are still there, they're still, they're still the masters.

Uh, but, so there's a lot of pressure on their shoulders right now. Is the job evolving? Because one of the things you do see with all these different databases is there's a lot of different data types floating around, and now we're starting to see vector databases for AI models being added to that mix.

Um, what is the relationship between the D B A and the developers and this whole new class of folks that we're calling DataOps slash data engineers? There's, there's data engineers in place, there's big data considerations, and so, you know, really depends on the specialty of the D B A in terms of what you're getting there. And again, there is money to be made.

I, I would suggest in the areas where it's hot right now. So if you're talking about big data, you're talking about AI enablement, uh, a lot of dollars to be made for consultants in that space. What we are seeing is trying to get hold of the top talent who's had that experience.

Again, it's a premium side of the market. You're paying a premium for that. And of course there's interesting projects.

I mean, people that have had that experience once and want to keep going back to it and doing more and more, uh, project work out there. So definitely a hot market right now. And, uh, obviously there's, uh, you know, kids coming outta college and looking for, uh, career opportunities.

This is a good space to be in if you are, uh, early in your career and willing to be flexible and jump in, you can learn, you know, learn a bit about these and, and make, uh, make some big dollars. We talked about using the databases to build the AI models, but might we not see AI used to manage the databases themselves? Can AI save us from ourselves?

Uh, so of course there's, there's ways to automate, uh, as there always has been. And, you know, it's not, not new news to DBAs to be able to automate what happens. Uh, AI brings a lot of capability in that space, and I look forward to seeing improved tools in that area.

Uh, but ultimately the DBAs reign Supreme in this space for a reason. You know, access to the, you know, the corporate data, uh, is needs by necessity to be restricted. There's security controls in place.

Uh, you have to have this locked down. And again, to, to trust that all to a machine. I don't know, there's, there's a few movies about that.

So, uh, I think that, uh, you know, having the D B A there with that ultimate control, uh, still super important, uh, certainly in my book. And, uh, this is definitely still very much a people business, uh, DBAs central to, uh, to the success here. Success.

Do you think there'll be newfound respect for data management? 'cause and I asked the question, 'cause in my experience, most of the organizations I know would not get a good housekeeping seal of approval for the way they have historically managed data. So are we gonna get better at that?

So I think You've touched on a saw point for many organizations there, which is what is the legacy, you know, what's the legacy that's been out there? And, and whether that's legacy of corporate data, whether that's data management out there, or whether that's for compliance purposes, people have to sustain, or organizations have to sustain that data for longer and longer. And as a result, sometimes that technical debt has built up and there's a lot there to manage, which means, again, big overhead work on the D B A shoulders.

Uh, and with every new system that you add on, you're potentially adding in, uh, increased technical debt. If you're not thinking of going back and doing that cleanup or how you're gonna handle that data management to challenge it in the forefront. Who's responsible for securing all this data?

Because these days it feels like the cybersecurity people are all, uh, shall we say, retreating from the edge of the network, and they're saying we need to secure every piece of data. And that seems to go back to the D B A. So how is the D B A and the security people getting on these days?

Yeah, I, I think core principles apply when it comes down to security. And so, you know, trying to minimize the number of people who have access to, uh, you know, privileged access, administrative access into the system is key. Uh, again, having those, those standards around corporate security is, is not, none of that has changed.

And, and I've said many times that the best thing you can have from a security perspective is someone who wakes up in the morning thinking about your security and they go to bed at night thinking about your security. Ultimately, it comes down to people. There are tools, there's monitoring, uh, that can assist there to give you better intelligence, uh, around, uh, potential threat vectors that give you more detail about, uh, you know, what's happening on your network in real time.

But again, it comes down to people. You want those security people that are focused on that all day, every day. And that's where the most secure, uh, systems come from.

Of course, I would say, and, and you know, my, my background's in aerospace and defense that there's no such thing as a secure network. Uh, all you need to do is the air gap is the best form of security. And of course for most of these databases, uh, people can't handle that air gap level of security.

So you, you've gotta be connected to something and as a result, by, by its nature, it's inherently insecure. Mm-hmm. So what's your best advice to all the folks trying to support these databases?

Should they get a support contract from somebody? 'cause it seems like one of the issues that we have have is, um, you know, every few months somebody wakes up and doesn't like somebody else and forks a database, and now we got a whole other version of a database out there, and it gets hard to keep track of the licenses, it gets hard to keep track of what versions you're supposed to be using, and naturally developers will invoke the wrong version number at the wrong time. So how do you make any sense of all this?

Yeah, so, you know, one, one of the key things, one key takeaway I'd like to go and pass on to people here is don't underestimate the cost of these systems. So, you know, there's a real cost to provide support, uh, for these environments. And you don't wanna shortcut that because ultimately when you've got your production systems, depending on those databases, you wanna make sure that they are secure.

And whether that database has an Oracle or a Microsoft or an I B M brand on it, or whether it's a Postgres or a MySQL, uh, brand on there, uh, the concern is the same. It's still production data. And when the chips are down and there's a problem with that system, you need great support for it.

And of course, Romania Street is there to provide great support for those databases. That's what we do, where with specialists in support, uh, ultimately organizations need to make their choices. And you've just gotta be careful not to write off open source as it'll be free throughout, because they can be just as complicated as the commercial databases, uh, day-to-day to provide that production support.

All right, folks. Well, you heard it here. There's more data than ever.

There's more databases than ever, some of which are open source, and they all need to be supported. It's up to you to decide what degree you want, take that on, or maybe find somebody else to help carry the load. Hey, Craig, thanks for being on the show.

Thank you so much. All right. And back to you guys in the.