The 2020 State of Database

DevOps Report

josh smith

@sqldeployhelmet

josh@accitentionaldba.com

• Production DBA • Spokane PASS

Chapter Leader • SQL Saturday

Spokane Organizer • Friend of Redgate

The 2020 State of Database DevOps Report

4th annual survey

More than 2,000 participants this year

Respondents across all industries worldwide

https://www.red-gate.com/solutions/database-devops/report-2020

Agenda

Teams are increasingly distributed

The workforce is evolving

Skill shortages are increasing

18%

24% 21%

Failed Deployments &Downtime

Slow dev & release cycles Inability to respond tochanging requirements

These trends compound the risks of siloed database development. The top risks are…

58%

82%

28%

13%

14%

5%

All others

Adopted DevOpsacross all projects

Good or Great OK Poor

Team integration between devs and DBAs

23% 22% 16%

Disruption to existingworkflows/business

Lack of appropriate skills in theteam

Lack of alignment betweendevelopment and operations

Top perceived obstacles for implementing database DevOps

Standardization unifies

team across silos and

locations

Focus on “eliminating toil”

which frees up time

Database DevOps centralizes the evolving workforce

Standardization need not be rigid

• Version control for all

code

• Automatic code

validation and testing

• All deployments via

automated pipeline

• Flexibility

• Choice of branching strategy

• Customize where and when these run

• Use gates / approvals as needed

Customers are driving products Expect delivery of value more quickly

Require you to keep their data safe

Software core to the business “tilts” the playing field in favor of those who use it most effectively

“Information Technology and Industry

Concentration” · James Bessen · Boston

University School of Law, 2017

[VALUE] weekly or better

[VALUE] weekly or better

[VALUE] weekly or better

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

2018 2019 2020

Once or a few times a year

Once or twice a Month

Daily, Weekly, or on Demand

Production database deployment frequency is increasing

55%

27%

17%

All or most deployments to liveenvironment

A few deployments to liveenvironment

No deployments to liveenvironment

Most production database deployments occur when the environment is live for users

37%

20%

28%

45%

43%

39%

19%

37%

33%

Easy to get a code review

Difficult to get a code review

No code review

1% or less of deployments have defects

2-10% of deployments have defects

More than 10% of deployments have defects

Best result

Early code review is associated with lower production defect rates

Patterns for tempo & stability

• Release small changes frequently

• Separate concepts of deployments and releasing

• Get visibility into deployment and release impact from monitoring

• Write backwards compatible changes

• Use feature flags to enable/disable functionality*

• Change course as needed based on customer feedback

https://michaeljswart.com/2018/01/100-online-deployments/

Innovation in a changing world

These trends increase pressure on the database, a common blocker of development

“We value:

Automation as a team player versus automation as a replacement for humans”

https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/869465

Compliant Database

DevOps increases

the flow of value

Don’t let the database

block development

Tempo & stability

promote one another