Install a database server. Give the application team an endpoint. Set up backups and monitor in perpetuity. This is a pattern I hear about regularly from DBAs with most of my enterprise clients. Rarely do they get to troubleshoot or work with application teams to tune queries or design schemas. This is what triggers the interest in a DBaaS platform from database administrators.
What is DBaaS?
DBaaS stands for “Database as a Service”. When this acronym is thrown out, the first thought is generally a cloud offering such as RDS. While this is a very commonly used service, a DBaaS is really just a managed database platform that offloads much of the operational burden from the DBA team. Tasks handled by the platform include:
- Installing the database software
- Configuring the database
- Setting up backups
- Managing upgrades
- Handling failover scenarios
A common misconception is that a DBaaS is limited to the public cloud. As many enterprises already have large data centers and heavy investments in hardware, an on-premise DBaaS can also be quite appealing. Keeping the database in-house is often favored when the hardware and resources are already available. In addition, there are extra compliance and security concerns when looking at a public cloud offering.
DBaaS also represents a difference in mindset. In conventional deployments, systems and architecture are often designed in very exotic ways making automation a challenge. With a DBaaS, automation, standardization, and best practices are the priority. While this can be seen as limiting flexibility, this approach can lead to larger and more robust infrastructures that are much easier to manage and maintain.
Why is DBaaS Appealing?
From a DBA perspective (and being a former DBA myself), I always enjoyed working on more challenging issues. Mundane operations like launching servers and setting up backups make for a less-than-exciting daily work experience. When managing large fleets, these operations make up the majority of the work.
As applications grow more complex and data sets grow rapidly, it is much more interesting to work with the application teams to design and optimize the data tier. Query tuning, schema design, and workflow analysis are much more interesting (and often beneficial) when compared to the basic setup. DBAs are often skilled at quickly identifying issues and understanding design issues before they become problems.
When an enterprise adopts a DBaaS model, this can free up the DBAs to work on more complex problems. They are also able to better engage and understand the applications they are supporting. A common comment I get when discussing complex tickets with clients is: “well, I have no idea what the application is doing, but we have an issue with XYZ”. If this could be replaced with a detailed understanding from the design phase to the production deployment, these discussions would be very different.
From an application development perspective, a DBaaS is appealing because new servers can be launched much faster. Ideally, with development or production deployment options, an application team can have the resources they need ready in minutes rather than days. It greatly speeds up the development life cycle and makes developers much more self-reliant.
DBaaS Options
While this isn’t an exhaustive list, the main options when looking to move to a DBaaS are:
- Public cloud
- Amazon RDS, Microsoft Azure SQL, etc
- Private/Internal cloud
- Kubernetes (Percona DBaaS), VMWare, etc
- Custom provisioning/operations on bare-metal
Looking at public cloud options for a DBaaS, security and compliance are generally the first concern. While they are incredibly easy to launch and generally offer some pay-as-you-go options, managing access is a major consideration.
Large enterprises with existing hardware investments often want to explore a private DBaaS. I’ve seen clients work to create their own tooling within their existing infrastructure. While this is a viable option, it can be very time-consuming and require many development cycles. Another alternative is to use an existing DBaaS solution. For example, Percona currently has a DBaaS deployment as part of Percona Monitoring and Management in technical preview. The Percona DBaaS automates PXC deployments and management tasks on Kubernetes through a user-friendly UI.
Finally, a custom deployment is just what it sounds like. I have some clients that manage fleets (1000s of servers) of bare metal servers with heavy automation and custom scripting. To the end-user, it can look just like a normal DBaaS (an endpoint with all operations hidden). On the backend, the DBA team spends significant time just supporting the infrastructure.
How Can Percona help?
Percona works to meet your business where you are. If that is supporting Percona Server for MySQL on bare metal or a fleet of RDS instances, we can help. If your organization is leveraging Kubernetes for the data tier, the Percona Private DBaaS is a great option to standardize and simplify your deployments while following best practices. We can help from the design phase through the entire life cycle. Let us know how we can help!
