Regardless of your job or industry, do you ever have enough hours in the day to get everything done? If not, what’s the answer? Work more hours or work smarter? We prefer the second option. Automating as much as possible reduces the number of decisions and tasks you have to deal with throughout the day. That can help you get more done with less stress. Always wear the same suit One of Barack Obama’s presidential productivity secrets was apparently ‘always wear the same suit’. By eliminating unnecessary and mundane tasks, he could focus all of his energy on more important work decisions. Your DBAs and DevOps team would love to be able to do the same. Here are four ways database automation can help you save time and money. 1. It can free up 60-70% of your DBAs’ time Businesses now have vast amounts of data to deal with in multiple locations, including private data centers and public clouds. You also have to take care of compliance, security, costs, GDPR, availability, migrations, upgrades and many other issues. Yet, one of the biggest issues Database Administrators (DBAs) have to deal with is finding and correcting human errors. These often go undetected, as someone makes a change that accidentally causes a problem in another part of the database. It happens a lot, because database users can make so many small changes. In fact, we estimate that 60-70% of DBA time is spent on solving these issues. Automation, such as Desired State Configuration (DSC), frees up time for your highly skilled DBAs. This enables them to work on higher value and more engaging database improvement work, rather than doing repetitive, boring and time-consuming tasks. 2. Your business can do more with less The cost savings of automation are significant. We find some of the biggest savings are in database maintenance, where we estimate you could cut your costs by as much as 50%. For mid to large sized companies, the reduced staffing costs alone can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. For your DevOps teams, database automation means the configuration for every server they are programming is exactly the same. This saves them time, reduces errors and helps them deliver cleaner, better code. 3. You can improve your data security This is a priority in every organization. Database breaches can destroy brand value faster than problems with products or services. Customers will forgive many things but not the loss of their personal data. Who has access to our databases? What authentication do users need? How can we make the process easier to understand and safer to use? Automation can help answer these questions. It can make it easier for you to protect your customers’ data and stay GDPR compliant. 4. Continuous database delivery is easier We can help you automate software and server updates, tests and checks. This means you can move from test to production more quickly and with less risk of human error. Implementing our DSC tool is quick and easy. You certainly don’t need to be a coder. Our simple Q&A sequence guides you through the process. It’s no more difficult than changing your email address. As Bill Gates famously said, “I always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job because they will find an easy way to do it.” The assumption here is, of course, that the lazy person is actually very smart. That’s where automation comes in. Savvy DBAs and developers know that database automation relieves them of many repetitive tasks. It allows them to focus on more important areas. Your people and your database are valuable assets – giving them more time could be the best investment you make. Visit https://www.sqltreeo.com to find out how our Desired State Configurator can help you automate a wide range of database maintenance and development tasks. See how it will save you time and money, improve data security and keep your highly skilled database professionals happy and engaged.

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