DEVOPSdigest

The task of managing many ongoing technology projects, coupled with the need to continuously amend and improve systems for meeting reporting requirements, sometimes serves as an obstacle for enterprises in implementing Continuous Delivery practices for the database. In a number of surveys, common automation issues cited by DBAs include an inability to determine who made what changes to the database and the possibility of version control scripts not being updated, which can result in executing the wrong revision in production, thus creating bugs or application crashes.

Yet, enterprises taking advantage of modern, effective DevOps for Database solutions find that it's possible to implement the same Continuous Delivery best practices, which prove valuable in application development, for the database, enabling true database automation that actually mitigates the risk of human error while simultaneously speeding development cycles. The end result is less downtime, fewer errors, and a reduction in development costs.

While continuous delivery can speed development and help reduce costly downtime, regulatory database compliance remains a sticking point for modern enterprises. With the fast-paced wave of regulation, technology should be serving as a tool that helps to achieve compliance and combat regulatory constraints, rather than a roadblock to meeting compliance.

Enterprises successfully navigate these challenges, balancing the need for innovation, fast-paced development, and risk management with regulatory compliance, by implementing DevOps for Database solutions to actually leverage technology to meet compliance requirements. This is achieved through:

■ Proper database version control for structure, code, and content, while enforcing a single work process to prevent out of process changes, code overrides, and incomplete updates.

■ Leveraging proven version control best practices, such as check-in, check-out functionality to document complete information for regulatory reporting, including who made changes to a database object, what changes were made, and when and why the changes were introduced. This results in a complete, reliable audit trail while minimizing manual documentation requirements for developers.

■ Reliable impact analysis for deployment generators, relying on baseline-aware analysis (not simple compare-and-sync), offering the ability to deal with conflicts and merges of the database code – even cross-updates from dispersed teams – and also dealing with out-of-process changes and ignoring wrong code overrides.

■ Defined access levels (down to individual objects and data), which completely prevents unauthorized changes to the database, maintaining the quality and integrity of the database and associated data while still enabling complete and functional access for every team member on-demand.

Security and regulatory compliance are increasing concerns for companies in today's complex business climate. The database presents a more substantial concern because unauthorized database changes can spell disaster.

Adopting an effective DevOps for Database solution helps companies successfully manage and secure multiple database environments in order to create applications and drive business results. By combining security and database change management capabilities, customers can better address critical database security vulnerabilities and their ability to meet audit and compliance requirements.