Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

As part of a recent Redgate Summit which focused on digital transformation and data modernization, I was fortunate enough to be able to interview Pramod Sadalage, a Director at Thoughtworks. There, and I’m quoting here, he enjoys the rare role of bridging the divide between database professionals and application developers.

The first post in this series introduced the idea of the different layers of value that your business can gain from frequent deployments and focused on the hard costs you can save. We’re looking at the role the database plays here because it’s the most complicated part of the process and it’s difficult to hit aggressive KPIs and goals when your teams are burdened with process bloat due to mistake-prone, manual work.

We’ve written a ton of content about how to unlock the value of frequent deployments for your database as well as applications, from improved coding patterns to strategies for architecting smaller deployments. But the multi-million-dollar question for you and your business is something else entirely: what is the real business value of frequent deployments? That’s the question I’m going to address in this series of three posts.

Digital transformation seems to be on the to-do list of every organization at the moment. Alongside it, DevOps is one of those buzzwords that gets lumped in, with some vague intention of having things automated. If you’re championing a DevOps implementation in your organization, or wish to see where your current processes measure up against your peers, read on.

Database DevOps has come of age. Now seen as a key technical practice which can contribute to the successful implementation of DevOps, it stops the database being a bottleneck and makes releases faster and easier. Conversely, perhaps, the automation and audit trails it introduces can help to protect personal data within databases and make compliance part of the same process rather than an additional time-consuming step outside it.

I don’t need to highlight the impact of the last few years on the world and its businesses. Companies that once completely dismissed the idea of remote working now embrace online offices, with many now operating fully remotely. Externally, the marketplace is shifting too, and opportunities for creating and realizing value can be found in new, less familiar places.

Like every business sector, Financial Services has been on a rollercoaster ride over the past couple of years. The pandemic forced a change in the way businesses work, and the way products and services are delivered to customers. Deloitte summed it up beautifully in the introduction to its ‘Finance 2025 Revisited report’1: “COVID-19 has sped up business innovation and stress-tested the concept of 100% remote work.”

Every enterprise is now facing the same challenge: to do more with less in a demanding economic environment. Releasing value to customers sooner while at the same time controlling the costs of their infrastructures, retaining skilled staff, and reducing risk. With technology now central to the way many enterprises offer, package and deliver their products and services, it has a big part to play here. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella summed it up perfectly in the keynote to Microsoft Inspire 2022 when he said.

I was recently joined for a live webinar by Tony Maddonna (Microsoft Platform Lead, Enterprise Architect & Operations Manager at BMW) and Hamish Watson (DevOps Alchemist at Morph iT) to discuss their experiences with digital transformation and the impact it had on them, their teams and the wider organization.