High-Performance Data Architectures

Chapter 2. Choosing the Right Database for Your Enterprise

As explored in Chapter 1, the database world has seen an explosion of choices and approaches to various data problems—which are also exploding in scope and size. With so many options, database and business teams face a bewildering palette of databases that all serve important purposes.

Many Unique Choices for Many Unique Problems

To succeed in a data-driven economy, enterprises need to embrace the three Vs of data—volume, variety, and velocity. There is an ever-growing need to process a growing volume of data, integrate it from multiple sources and systems, and facilitate real-time data processing and analysis. To manage this, a new generation of databases is emerging, employing advanced technologies such as in-memory databases, distributed databases, and cloud-based analytics platforms.

With these new data environments comes potentially very complex data architectures—and with them, demand for appropriate talent and skills, as well as modern data governance and security. A cloud native infrastructure is a clear answer to support enterprise business and operations with a much more agile foundation. With the right database delivered via or supported by the cloud, data teams can improve performance, increase efficiency, and gain a competitive edge. A streamlined data architecture with a cloud native database will help deliver competitive differentiation.

An additional consideration is the fact that databases provide