|
In today's highly competitive marketplace, organizations must be able to immediately access integrated data in order to support their customers, partners, and internal end users. For companies like Raymond James Financial, one of the largest financial services firms in the United States and serving more than 1.3 million accounts, having real-time data is critical to surviving in the industry. Database consolidation helps them drill down and filter information for their accounts in 2,100 locations around the world.
HP uses a proven, iterative consolidation methodology that enables organizations to leverage their current investments and deploy new technologies in a way that helps them streamline their business processes, address their current business requirements, and respond to changing market pressures and customer demands quickly and cost-effectively.
- Database consolidation plans that include improving operational efficiency of the database management system (DBMS) result in typical savings of 20?60 percent.
- Forrester estimates that more than 10 percent of all databases are not used or are sparingly used.
- According to AMR Research, while more than 70 percent of companies are involved in database consolidation projects at some level, almost half are just beginning and only six percent have completed a consolidation project.
Marketplace drives need for database consolidation
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, organizations invested heavily in new IT environments in an effort to support their rapidly expanding business. These investments included the proliferation of geographically dispersed databases and database servers that housed the information needed to support a company's customers, partners, and suppliers.
While these siloed databases of information have proven useful in supporting the needs of specific business units or individual groups, they do not allow organizations to have an integrated and comprehensive view of their operational and customer data. While many organizations point to cost savings as a primary reason for database consolidation, research has proven that market forces are driving these efforts:
- Mergers and acquisitions?Business entities that merge into single organizations turn to database consolidation to help reduce multiple data centers and centralize database applications and systems.
- Globalization?As organizations expand their operations and customer bases, it is critical to control and centralize data in order to deliver a consistent, single view of enterprise information related to employees, customers, partners, and suppliers.
- Centralization of administration?Distributed databases can be difficult to administer and manage, particularly when they are located across large geographical areas. Database consolidation helps organizations improve operational efficiencies, lower costs, and enable IT staffs to focus on their core competencies.
- Cost reduction initiatives?Competition is forcing organizations to find ways to reduce costs and improve return on investment. Forrester estimates that 80 percent of all databases in any enterprise are not productive and are often used for testing, development, and maintenance to support applications.
- Advances in technology?Newer database technologies give organizations an opportunity to merge smaller databases and improve the manageability and cost-effectiveness of their infrastructures. Advances in high-speed network connectivity mean that end users can readily access centralized database applications, eliminating the need for distributed databases.
- Regulatory compliance?Regulations such as HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, and Basel II are forcing organizations to show their compliance vis-a-vis how they house data and who can access it.
- Shift to Service-Oriented Architectures?Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs) enable organizations to make business functions or data available to business users in forms they can easily use. As organizations develop SOAs, the consolidation of data?as well as the meta data?into single repositories enables organizations to measure, predict, and optimize enterprise-wide and departmental business processes without the traditional constraints of IT.
Addressing the challenges of consolidation
According to research, database consolidation is often undertaken as part of a larger IT consolidation effort. Yet while many organizations are focusing on consolidation, very few have completed database consolidation initiatives.
Why such a delay? According to Forrester Research, one reason is that growing databases is a lot easier than consolidating them. In fact, within most organizations, the number of databases continues to grow because of newer applications and the need for development and maintenance of existing applications.
In addition, there are specific risks associated with database consolidation that hold organizations back from starting consolidation projects.
|
