Get More for Less with Cloud Database as a Service

In the evolving landscape of cloud computing, businesses are constantly seeking ways to optimize their database management strategies. Organizations can tightly optimize their workloads on cloud infrastructure as a service (IaaS), but that requires significant upfront planning and ongoing oversight. For those that want to offload more of the responsibilities, two prominent options are Cloud Database as a Service (Cloud DBaaS) solutions that include human database administrators (DBAs) as a managed service, and cloud-based Platform as a Service (PaaS) solutions that rely on purely automated processes. This blog post aims to examine the cost efficiency benefits of Cloud DBaaS with managed DBA services compared to automated PaaS solutions. 

Reduced Overprovisioning of Resources 

One of the primary areas of differentiation between Cloud DBaaS with managed DBA services and automated PaaS solutions is the management of resources. PaaS solutions limit capacity and throughput potential based on the virtual CPUs (vCPUs) of the databases hosts, leading to a resource bundling that causes overprovisioning.  

Example: In Azure SQL Managed Instance, 4 vCore instances can only get up to 1 or 2 TB of capacity and 6,400 to 16,000 IOPS, depending on the service tier. To get, say, 8 TB of capacity or 32,000 IOPS would require between 8 and 64 vCores, depending on the series and service tier.  

This inefficiency results in higher costs as businesses pay for unused resources.  This impact is intensified due to the higher cost of the solution relative to the equivalent setup on cloud IaaS. 

In contrast, Cloud DBaaS solutions allow for greater independent provisioning of resources. Human DBAs leveraging a flexible DBaaS architecture can fine-tune resource allocation based on actual usage patterns, ensuring that businesses pay for what they truly need. 

Efficient Architecture 

Data and performance efficiency is another area where Cloud DBaaS solutions shine. Cloud database PaaS offerings usually require thick provisioning and don’t offer data reduction capabilities like compression, zero elimination, and deduplication. DBaaS solutions with these capabilities streamline the capacity footprint, reducing the underlying infrastructure costs of the customer.  

With some exceptions, database PaaS solutions provision performance individually for each database instance. Customers will need to provision for the peak performance of each workload separately. Cloud DBaaS solutions built on a shared solution that allow for performance pooling mitigate this by allowing multiple workloads to use the same performance resources, taking advantage of the varied peaks and valleys of performance between different applications. 

Modern environments typically share data across many use cases. This results in many copies of the same data – for resiliency, parallel applications, lower environments, and more. Cloud database PaaS solutions generally require full copies for each additional use case. In contrast, Cloud DBaaS offerings might have thin snapshots, views, and clones that allow for minimal cost increases (typically only for incremental written data) across uses that share the same location. 

These benefits are magnified with the assistance of actual DBAs in a Cloud DBaaS offering. These trusted advisors can thoughtfully assist with the architecture of your deployment to take maximum advantage of these efficiencies in a way that automated PaaS solutions can’t. 

More Efficient Database Licensing 

Another critical cost efficiency benefit is the more efficient use of database licensing. With the overprovisioning mentioned before, PaaS solutions typically require a higher number of vCPUs. Since most database licensing is based on the vCPU count, this overprovisioning can lead to the need to purchase additional database license, either directly through each new PaaS instance or indirectly in a bring-your-own-license (BYOL) offering. Cloud DBaaS solutions, with the expertise of human DBAs, optimize the number of vCPUs needed. This optimization results in fewer vCPUs and, consequently, lower licensing expenses. 

Increased Operational Efficiency 

Two elements of Cloud DBaaS offerings increase operational efficiency in a way that cloud database PaaS solutions don’t offer: data services and DBA guidance. 

Data services such as snapshots, views, and clones, as well as replication capabilities, can significantly cut down time spent processing and sharing data. For example, many applications rely on Extract, Transform, Load or ETL processes to take production transactional data and make it available for analytical use. Cloud DBaaS data services can take ETL processes that take hours and reduce those to as little as 15 minutes. Slimming down these processes gets data into the hands of employees and customers faster, resulting in significant business value. 

Operational efficiency is also greatly enhanced with the presence of skilled DBAs. Greater monitoring, tuning, and maintenance by human DBAs ensure that databases run optimally. This proactive management reduces downtime, enhances performance, and minimizes the cost associated with potential database issues. Cloud database PaaS solutions might include some basic automated management or tuning, but without the business and architectural context that a managed DBA team gathers in partnership with customers, the impact is minimal. 

Operational Excellence 

Imagine a scenario where a database experiences performance degradation. In an automated PaaS setup, detecting and resolving this issue might take longer due to the lack of human oversight. With managed DBA services, such issues are swiftly identified and addressed, maintaining operational continuity and avoiding costly downtimes. 

Introducing Silk Cloud Database as a Service 

Silk Cloud Database as a Service is one such Cloud DBaaS solution allows you to optimize your cloud costs. With Silk, you can safely reduce the necessary cloud resources to their smallest configuration without compromising performance availability. Silk Cloud DBaaS enables you to minimize cloud resource costs and relevant software licensing, while freeing up resources to bring more of your workload to the cloud or reinvest in innovation and growth.  

On top of that, Silk Cloud DBaaS gives you the freedom to choose any VM shape, any version, any cloud, and any database, tailored precisely to your performance and capacity needs. That includes when updates and patching occurs, regardless of the cloud provider’s update and patching schedule. Silk’s DBA team is available 24/7/365 to handle maintenance and troubleshooting, empowering your internal team to focus on strategic initiatives. With Silk Cloud DBaaS, you can experience unparalleled flexibility and control in your cloud database journey. 

Conclusion 

In conclusion, while automated PaaS solutions offer the allure of simplicity and reduced management overhead, Cloud DBaaS solutions with managed DBA services provide unparalleled cost efficiency benefits. Through reduced overprovisioning of resources, more efficient database licensing, savings from data efficiencies, and increased operational efficiency, businesses can achieve significant financial advantages. As the demand for agile and cost-effective database management solutions grows, the role of human DBAs in a Cloud DBaaS setup becomes increasingly vital.