In this series of blog posts, we speak with database professionals from Financial Services organizations around the world to better understand how DevOps is shaping the sector. On the way, we dig into key current factors including the rise of technology upstarts in fintech and insurtech, the speed of digital transformation and the ever-increasing threat of cyberattacks. First up, we speak with Hamish Watson, DevOps Alchemist and Managing Director at Morph IT Consulting.

What is the cost of database performance for businesses today? The very shocking reality is most owners have absolutely no idea. In fact, I would even go so far as to say most business owners can’t even begin to understand everything this question might encompass.

Oracle Database is known for its reliability, scalability, and outstanding performance. An enterprise-friendly feature catalogue makes it a go-to for companies that need data to be available across their disparate IT infrastructure. Large-scale enterprises relying on huge database systems like Oracle need to make sure that data transactions are hassle-free and demand is met with the resources available.

PostgreSQL and MySQL are two of the most popular open-source databases available today. They both provide the database backend for an untold number of web applications, enterprise software packages, and data science projects. The two databases share some similarities in that they both adhere to the SQL standard. However, there are some key differences that might influence your decision to choose one over the other.

Prometheus remote write protocol is used by Prometheus for sending data to remote storage systems such as VictoriaMetrics. See these docs on how to setup Prometheus to send the data to VictoriaMetrics. This protocol is very simple - it writes the collected raw samples into WriteRequest protobuf message, then compresses the message with Snappy compression algorithm and sends it to the remote storage in an HTTTP POST request.

Blocked queries are one of the key issues faced by database analysts, engineers, and anyone managing database performance at scale. Blocking can be caused by inefficient query or database design as well as resource saturation, and can lead to increased latency, errors, and user frustration. Pinpointing root blockers—the underlying problematic queries that set off cascading locks on database resources—is key to troubleshooting and remediating database performance issues.