When Windows 95 was first released, it had a woefully inadequate antivirus program. While the application worked fine, users had to pay to update the virus definitions. This led to complacency among many users, and millions of machines with no up-to-date virus protection. We simply wouldn’t risk this today.
Yet at the same time, millions of business databases are running without any form of proactive monitoring. This is similar to running office PCs without any virus protection. If you lack proactive monitoring, any critical database could be vulnerable to attacks and mishaps, resulting in downtime, loss of data, and loss of revenue.
Quantifying the risks
Proactive database monitoring is an ongoing process. It ensures your database is not left freewheeling, or harbouring unknown problems. And it ensures ongoing data security, which is essential in any organisation.
For any business, down time is one of the key risks to quantify. Databases, generally, sit at the heart of business operations. If your database goes down, your staff can’t work. Your applications may go offline; your website may be unavailable. How much would an hour’s downtime cost you? What about a day, or a full weekend? Collectively, these kind of disruptions cost UK businesses an estimated £2 billion each year.
There’s also a knock-on effect after an outage. Staff, inevitably, have to play catch-up, and may be called in for overtime. That costs money. Partners and clients are going to be inconvenienced and disgruntled by the interruption to service.
And if data security as been compromised, or compliance targets missed, that opens up another level of risk. Penalties and fines could amplify the cost of the outage.
Yet all this could have been prevented.
Preventing costly interruption
The best way to deal with an outage is to prevent it from happening in the first place. In order to achieve that, you need to put measures in place to monitor and manage databases effectively:
- Specific expertise is essential. Your business needs expert resource in the specific database technologies you use. If you have legacy applications, then locating this resource on a full-time basis could be challenging.
- Remote monitoring is beneficial. Whether you have in-house DBAs, or you’ve decided to buy outsourced database support, remote monitoring gives you the flexibility to keep on top of database performance 24/7.
- Personal support ensures consistency. With some database support providers, you’ll be at the whim of a large team, and you may not deal with the same person twice. WellData assigns a primary and secondary contact so that there’s a consistency of support, and an understanding of the individual risks to your organisation.
- Fixed fees are a must. With the best monitoring in the world, unexpected outages will inevitably occur from time to time. Your business needs to protect itself against the financial impact wherever possible, so fixed fee support is a must.
Affordable solutions
WellData provides proactive database monitoring for businesses across the UK. Our approach is proactive in nature; we believe that Fix Before Fail is the best philosophy. Find out how we can reduce downtime and costs with a 24/7 proactive monitoring and support package. Contact our friendly team to discuss your requirements in detail.
<< Back to Articles
