In this DevOps 101 series, I introduce the concept of DevOps and talk about how you can include the database as a natural partner. In the previous post in the series, I discussed how automation introduces faster and more frequent deployments as a key benefit. We’re now going to take a deep dive into the value you can unlock through frequent deployments using database DevOps, along with how you get started doing them.

At the end of 2021, we published a blog post about the Autumn budget in the UK, what it meant for IT teams in the NHS, and why data management should be prioritised. We looked specifically at four key areas for sharing, monitoring, protecting, and accessing data that we believe are crucial elements of the digital transformation journey. Digital transformation is part of the NHS Long Term Plan, a wide-ranging programme to upgrade technology and digitally-enabled care across the NHS.

This is the fifth part in the DevOps 101 series and it’s time to talk about automation. Before we get into it, I just want to recap what DevOps is. Microsoft’s Donovan Brown sums it up nicely in a single sentence: DevOps is the union of people, process, and products to enable continuous delivery of value to our end users. The important thing to remember here is the order in which he talks: people, process, and products. That’s the way DevOps works.

In this fourth session in our DevOps 101 series, we’re going to delve into Database DevOps specifically. But before we get going, I just want to do a quick check to make sure we’re all on the same page. Donovan Brown’s definition of DevOps seems to have been adopted by almost everyone nowadays because it’s very clear: “DevOps is the union of people, process, and products to enable continuous delivery of value to our end users”.

I’ve written before about building your own monitoring systems versus buying a monitoring tool like Redgate SQL Monitor. There I talked about the time that someone tasked with managing and maintaining data gets back in their day when they purchase a monitoring solution. However, that’s not where the business focuses. The business frequently wants to know one thing and one thing only: what’s the return on this investment (ROI).

I was recently joined by Chris Yates, Senior Vice President, Managing Director of Data and Architecture at Republic Bank for our webinar, Gain the competitive edge with a monitoring tool. The session sparked an insightful conversation around estate monitoring from the perspective of a Senior VP, and I wanted to share some of the key take-aways.

This is the third part of my DevOps 101 series, so before we get going, let’s do a quick recap of what we’ve covered previously In DevOps 101: What, who, why, and how, I talked about how the definition from Microsoft’s Donovan Brown encapsulates DevOps succinctly as: The union of people, process, and products, to enable the continuous delivery of value to the end users.

Development teams are under increasing pressure to keep up with the demand for faster delivery of database changes, while ensuring code quality isn’t compromised. This pressure comes from both business requirements and industry expectations. The 2021 Accelerate State of Database DevOps report reveals that the number of teams who are elite performers is increasing year-on-year (making up 26% of those in the study) and these teams have more frequent code deployments and a lower change failure rate.