Tech Sector An Outlier in Adoption, Evolution of Database Technologies

Redgate Software’s Jeff Foster offers insights on the tech sector being an outlier in adoption when it comes to the evolution of database tech. This article originally appeared on Solutions Review’s Insight Jam, an enterprise IT community enabling the human conversation on AI.

In every industry, data drives business. Not just one kind of data and not just data from one source, but multiple data types, streams, and sources. Data is managed, massaged, analyzed, and used in different ways.

To stay competitive, we think it’s important for technology leaders to be able to benchmark their work against their peers. They need to understand how their segment uses data technologies.

We recently completed our periodic State of the Database Landscape Report and uncovered some important stats that apply to those of us in the technology sector in particular. These interesting trends are centered around core areas such as the use of database DevOps in the sector, data platform diversity, the impact of AI on data technology, and security.

Database DevOps

We surveyed 3,849 IT professionals. We found that nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of their organizations in the Technology and Software sector have adopted Database DevOps or are planning to. This reflects the strategic importance of data technologies in the field and the need for businesses to rapidly adapt their technologies to market conditions.

Paradoxically, other industries are more aggressive in adopting Database DevOps, perhaps reflecting the challenges of keeping up with rapidly changing regulations or other impingements. Notably, 78 percent of Financial Services and 92 percent of Healthcare respondents are pursuing Database DevOps.

Rapid Changes

However, compared to other industries, Technology is reaping the rewards of Database DevOps in terms of speed of deployment. We found that 57 percent of Tech respondents said their companies can deploy database changes in a week or less, compared with 53 percent across all other sectors.

In business today, change is life. It’s what keeps you ahead of your competitors, and it’s critical that data technologies can support the change a business needs.

Database Diversity and Monitoring

There’s something to be said about using the right tool for the job, but there’s also an advantage to consolidating platforms. In this regard, Technology companies appear to be better at enforcing internal database standards than other industries: 73 percent of them use three or fewer database platforms, and only 9 percent use more than five. Outside of technology, 57 percent use three or fewer, but a whopping 29 percent use more than five.

Tech firms also appear more in-tune with their data platforms, using significantly more real-time monitoring tools and dashboards than IT teams, except for the Financial Services sector, which also shows a high application of monitoring tools.

In the Tech sector, we believe the simultaneous adoption of database platforms with the tools to monitor them may slow down the adoption of new platforms while helping Tech IT teams do a better job of guaranteeing data platform availability and performance.

A Hybrid World

More than other industries, Tech has overall adopted a hybrid model for its data platforms, reinforcing the data showing that the number of all-cloud companies has jumped from 18 percent in 2020 to 36 percent in 2023, and the number of all on-premises companies has fallen from 53 percent to 31 percent in the same period.  In the future, more companies (41 percent) plan for a hybrid approach than complete migration to the cloud (18 percent). Other sectors show slightly less diversity in hosting arrangements, both now and planned.

AI: Tech Is Cautious

There’s an AI gap between the Tech industry and other sectors, and Tech is not wholly on the side you’d expect. For example, only 14 percent of Tech firms are using AI for database management, while 20 percent of other industries are. 15 percent of Tech companies say that AI is not applicable to their environment; only 10 percent of others do. More tech firms are considering using it for database management, though—70 percent vs. 57 percent.

Security: Tech is Ahead

Security is the one area we looked at where Technology firms easily outpace other industries. 35 percent of non-tech companies have no stated approach for sensitive data, while only 11 percent of Tech companies do (which is still too much). Security policies in other data areas, such as data controls, masking sensitive data, and using synthetic data, are also more frequently applied in the Tech sector than elsewhere.

A Head Start

Some discrepancies between Tech’s use of database platforms and other industries may be attributed to Tech being an earlier adopter of technology, and thus earlier to close off certain database evolutionary paths because, at the time, they were not viable. It’s also possible that Tech companies take the skilled technology personnel they hire and apply them to line-of-business departments instead of IT.

Regardless, it’s clear that unlike in other sectors, businesses in the Technology and Software sectors prefer fewer database types. It also appears that any desire to move to more database platforms is being held back by the sector’s recognition that new database platforms must be monitored comprehensively to guarantee availability and performance. And while the sector already has a defined cloud approach, their adoption of AI Is slower. Additionally, the sector handles sensitive data in development and testing more cautiously than other sectors, although some Tech businesses still need to ensure sensitive data is protected.

 For the full report, please see The State of the Database Landscape.