To gain insight into the evolving challenges for DBAs, Quest commissioned Unisphere Research to survey DBAs and those responsible for the management of the corporate data management infrastructure. The results are in and the thought-provoking findings are now available.

Among the key findings are:

• Structured data under management continues to grow at a substantial rate, requiring DBAs to manage both more database instances and a wider variety of relational database management systems.
• Cloud technology plays a significant role in hosting databases and that role will continue to grow. Cloud approaches will have the greatest impact on database administration over the next three years.
• NoSQL platforms represent a smaller but important slice of the data management infrastructure.
• Database management tools have reduced the time some DBAs must invest in some routine operations, allowing them to expand their roles in other areas. Database performance continues to be the top priority for DBAs.
• Many DBAs are increasingly involved in application development.