Factors for good database monitoring solutions

Choosing the right database monitoring solution is anything but trivial: it can have a lasting impact on your entire business process. Companies can hardly afford to postpone the decision, because increasingly dynamic server landscapes, heterogeneous hosting environments, and growing data complexity make the use of a database monitoring tool indispensable. The following four factors characterize the best solutions.

Future-proofing through scalability

With the explosive growth in data and storage volumes, the need to manage database landscapes efficiently is also growing. Good monitoring solutions facilitate scaling because they work across platforms and can be used regardless of the hosting location in the cloud or on-premises, as well as the number of databases. Transparency plays a central role here: an effective monitoring tool enables administrators to monitor all databases centrally and consistently via a single dashboard. This is the only way IT teams can maintain an overview of increasingly complex environments and ensure their reliability. If the monitoring solution can also be expanded with additional modules, it offers sufficient flexibility and is therefore future-proof.

Intuitive control despite complex environments

A robust monitoring solution meets the requirements of the entire team and ensures a consistent user experience (UX) across all platforms. Intuitive, web-based user interfaces, clear recommendations for action, and freely configurable notifications help to quickly identify and resolve problems. This allows database teams to maintain an overview even in hybrid or complex environments without being overwhelmed by information. Teams that monitor multiple platforms benefit particularly from this consistency. However, caution is advised: many manufacturers promise ease of use, but their dashboards are primarily aimed at beginners. Important functions and information for experts are often hidden in submenus or require specific queries. Therefore, a monitoring solution should ideally be freely configurable so that administrators of all experience levels can work efficiently.

Preventive troubleshooting through proactive monitoring

Proactive monitoring saves time, reduces stress, and boosts database performance, as modern solutions detect potential problems before they affect users. This gives administrators more freedom to optimize performance and security in a targeted manner. Excellent tools monitor storage space, backups, updates, and patches, among other things, and deliver the information clearly to a central dashboard. They also predict future requirements based on trends, making bottlenecks predictable. This allows administrators to take early action and prevent costly downtime before it occurs.

Actively promote database DevOps

Database monitoring traditionally only begins after deployment—long after the development phase. This does not have to be the case and is even harmful, because if a database is only monitored once it is live, problems are often already implemented. Modern monitoring solutions, on the other hand, promote collaboration between database administrators and developers. Developers, for example, have access to server diagnostic data, enabling them to better assess the impact of changes to the source code. In addition, teams that all have equal access to the information from monitoring can break down knowledge silos and work together on optimized database queries – before the changes go live.

«The complexity of database landscapes is constantly increasing—as is the amount of data. Without a powerful monitoring solution, administrator teams quickly lose track of things,» warns Oliver Stein, Managing Director DACH at Redgate. «Companies should therefore rely on a holistic, intuitive, scalable, and expandable tool. Combined with a dedicated team, this creates the perfect match.»

Source and further information

This article originally appeared on m-q.ch - https://www.m-q.ch/de/faktoren-fuer-gute-datenbank-monitoring-loesungen/