Matt Aslett's Analyst Perspectives

The server is a key component of enterprise computing, providing the functional compute resources required to support software applications. Historically, the server was so fundamentally important that it – along with the processor, or processor core – was also a definitional unit by which software was measured, priced and sold. That changed with the advent of cloud-based service delivery and consumption models.

Over a decade ago, I coined the term NewSQL to describe the new breed of horizontally scalable, relational database products. The term was adopted by a variety of vendors that sought to combine the transactional consistency of the relational database model with elastic, cloud-native scalability. Many of the early NewSQL vendors struggled to gain traction, however, and were either acquired or ceased operations before they could make an impact in the crowded operational data platforms market. Nonetheless, the potential benefits of data platforms that span both on-premises and cloud resources remain. As I recently noted, many of the new operational database vendors have now adopted the term “distributed SQL” to describe their offerings. In addition to new terminology, a key trend that separates distributed SQL vendors from the NewSQL providers that preceded them is a greater focus on developers, laying the foundation for the next generation of applications that will depend on horizontally scalable, relational-database functionality. Yugabyte is a case in point.

I recently described how the operational data platforms sector is in a state of flux. There are multiple trends at play, including the increasing need for hybrid and multicloud data platforms, the evolution of NoSQL database functionality and applicable use-cases, and the drivers for hybrid data processing. The past decade has seen significant change in the emergence of new vendors, data models and architectures as well as new deployment and consumption approaches. As organizations adopted strategies to address these new options, a few things remained constant – one being the influence and importance of Oracle. The company’s database business continues to be a core focus of innovation, evolution and differentiation, even as it expanded its portfolio to address cloud applications and infrastructure.

I recently wrote about the importance of data pipelines and the role they play in transporting data between the stages of data processing and analytics. Healthy data pipelines are necessary to ensure data is integrated and processed in the sequence required to generate business intelligence. The concept of the data pipeline is nothing new of course, but it is becoming increasingly important as organizations adapt data management processes to be more data driven.

Data governance is an issue that impacts all organizations large and small, new and old, in every industry, and every region of the world. Data governance ensures that an organization’s data can be cataloged, trusted and protected, improving business processes to accelerate analytics initiatives and support compliance with regulatory requirements. Not all data governance initiatives will be driven by regulatory compliance; however, the risk of falling foul of privacy (and human rights) laws ensures that regulatory compliance influences data-processing requirements and all data governance projects. Multinational organizations must be cognizant of the wide variety of regional data security and privacy requirements, not least the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The GDPR became enforceable in 2018, protects the privacy of personal or professional data, and carries with it the threat of fines of up to 20 million euros ($22 million) or 4% of a company’s global revenue. Europe is not alone in regulating against the use of personally identifiable information (other similar regulations include The California Consumer Privacy Act) but Ventana Research’s Data Governance Benchmark Research illustrates that there are differing attitudes and approaches to data governance on either side of the Atlantic.

I recently described the growing level of interest in data mesh which provides an organizational and cultural approach to data ownership, access and governance that facilitates distributed data processing. As I stated in my Analyst Perspective, data mesh is not a product that can be acquired or even a technical architecture that can be built. Adopting the data mesh approach is dependent on people and process change to overcome traditional reliance on centralized ownership of data and infrastructure and adapt to its principles of domain-oriented ownership, data as a product, self-serve data infrastructure and federated governance. Many organizations will need to make technological changes to facilitate adoption of data mesh, however. Starburst Data is associated with accelerating analysis of data in data lakes but is also one of several vendors aligning their products with data mesh.

Data mesh is the latest trend to grip the data and analytics sector. The term has been rapidly adopted by numerous vendors — as well as a growing number of organizations —as a means of embracing distributed data processing. Understanding and adopting data mesh remains a challenge, however. Data mesh is not a product that can be acquired, or even a technical architecture that can be built. It is an organizational and cultural approach to data ownership, access and governance. Adopting data mesh requires cultural and organizational change. Data mesh promises multiple benefits to organizations that embrace this change, but doing so may be far from easy.

Despite widespread and increasing use of the cloud for data and analytics workloads, it has become clear in recent years that, for most organizations, a proportion of data-processing workloads will remain on-premises in centralized data centers or distributed-edge processing infrastructure. As we recently noted, as compute and storage are distributed across a hybrid and multi-cloud architecture, so, too, is the data it stores and relies upon. This presents challenges for organizations to identify, manage and analyze all the data that is available to them. It also presents opportunities for vendors to help alleviate that challenge. In particular, it provides a gap in the market for data-platform vendors to distinguish themselves from the various cloud providers with cloud-agnostic data platforms that can support data processing across hybrid IT, multi-cloud and edge environments (including Internet of Things devices, as well as servers and local data centers located close to the source of the data). Yellowbrick Data is one vendor that has seized upon that opportunity with its cloud Data Warehouse offering.

I recently examined how evolving functionality had fueled the adoption of NoSQL databases, recommending that organizations evaluate NoSQL databases when assessing options for data transformation and modernization efforts. This recommendation was based on the breadth and depth of functionality offered by NoSQL database providers today, which has expanded the range of use cases for which NoSQL databases are potentially viable. There remain a significant number of organizations that have not explored NoSQL databases as well as several workloads for which it is assumed NoSQL databases are inherently unsuitable. Given the advances in functionality, organizations would be well-advised to maintain up-to-date knowledge of available products and services and an understanding of the range of use cases for which NoSQL databases are a valid option.

The various NoSQL databases have become a staple of the data platforms landscape since the term entered the IT industry lexicon in 2009 to describe a new generation of non-relational databases. While NoSQL began as a ragtag collection of loosely affiliated, open-source database projects, several commercial NoSQL database providers are now established as credible alternatives to the various relational database providers, while all the major cloud providers and relational database giants now also have NoSQL database offerings. Almost one-quarter (22%) of respondents to Ventana Research’s Analytics and Data Benchmark Research are using NoSQL databases in production today, and adoption is likely to continue to grow. More than one-third (34%) of respondents are planning to adopt NoSQL databases within two years (21%) or are evaluating (14%) their potential use. Adoption has been accelerated by the evolving functionality offered by NoSQL products and services, the growing maturity of specialist NoSQL vendors, and new commercial offerings from cloud providers and established database providers alike. This evolution is exemplified by the changing meaning of the term NoSQL itself. While it was initially associated with a rejection of the relational database hegemony, it has retroactively been reinterpreted to mean “Not Only SQL,” reflecting the potential for these new databases to coexist with and complement established approaches.