IT is struggling to keep up with the speed of business. The business landscape shifts priorities and requirements faster than you can say “request a change order.” As technology choices increase, so does the complexity of the decision-making process for new solutions. IT is left asking: “how can we quickly leverage new technology without introducing more complexity and risk?”
Business leaders are racing to develop new applications that leverage data and new technologies to fuel growth and drive competitive advantage. They want new mobile applications to better engage with customers; they want to know how to use the Internet of Things (IoT) to connect smart devices with existing infrastructure; and they are demanding improved, and real-time, analytics to find new solutions to existing challenges.
For IT, providing the technology to support new applications without adding additional complexity and risk, and while staying within budget, are the big challenges. IT must sort through a maze of technical options, beginning with the right database management system (DBMS). The following is a simplified assessment for scoring the best DBMS and vendor for your next new application development project. Use this as a “first pass” assessment before investing in a deep dive analysis:
DBMS and Vendor Assessment: New Application Development
1. Ease and flexibility of development (5 points each, 20 points total)

• Support for modern frameworks, languages,and tools
• Multi-model to handle a variety of workloads
• Ability to support structured and unstructured data
• Support for a broad range of data types

2. Support for cloud and DevOps (5 points each, 20 points total)

• Broad application support without limits (e.g., mobile, IoT, web, analytics, OLTP)
• Fluent in DevOps for rapid application development
• Flexible cloud management and deployment capabilities
• Integrates well with PaaS, IaaS, and DBaaS

3. Fit within your environment (5 points each, 20 points total)

• Leverage existing investments in infrastructure, skills, and applications
• Offers real-time data integration with existing solutions most critical to your business
• Supports your disaster recovery, high availability, and replication requirements
• Optional: Robust database compatibility with Oracle

4. Simple vendor relationship (5 points each, 20 points total)

• Simple business terms
• License portability across deployment environments
• Scale up/down without penalties
• Vendor stability and longevity

5. Quality of Services (5 points each, 20 points total)

• Vendor is recognized as an elite DBMS provider
• Offers professional services for expert guidance and knowledge transfer
• Provides training programs for learning best practices from seasoned experts
• Global, enterprise-level support and documented SLAs

Total Score: ________ out of 100
Repeat this assessment for each DBMS and vendor under consideration. The DBMS you select should score at least 90 points to meet the requirements of building new applications in today’s competitive environment. Such a solution will empower your project teams with the performance, flexibility, speed, and tools they need to build new applications without compromise.
To discuss your preliminary assessment results, or for additional guidance on how to best support your new application initiatives, contact us to start the conversation at sales@enterprisedb.com.
This blog post is the second of a five-part blog series about digital transformation. In the first introductory blog post, I identified ways to reduce complexity when choosing a DBMS across four key use cases. Part two has given you a model for assessing a DBMS to help with new application development. In the next blog post, part three of the five-part Digital Transformation series, I will explore digital transformation within the Cloud.
Matt Cicciari, Director of Product Marketing I EnterpriseDB