DATA STORAGE IN

AN OPEN SOURCE
WORLD

Sponsored by
DATA STORAGE IN
AN OPEN SOURCE
WORLD
AUTHORED BY:
Joe McKendrick,
Lead Analyst, Unisphere
Research, a Division of
Information Today, Inc.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������1

Examining the Open Source Database Landscape��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������2

Staying Agile with Ever-Expanding Data�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������3

Achieving a Modern Storage Environment��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������4

Optimizing Your Open Source Database Environment with Pure����������������������������������������������������������������������������5

1. Executive Summary data that is leveraged by today’s proliferation of
Open source databases have been on the scene advanced applications.
for a number of years as rapidly-deployable A modern storage environment that is simple,
databases at the peripheries of enterprises, scalable, adaptable and resilient is essential for
serving as testing environments and website going forward in today’s open source world,
back-ends. Lately, however, they have been especially as open source databases take on large
moving into mission-critical production enterprise workloads. The growing size and
environments in a big way, from Software-as-a- complexity of today’s database environments
Service (SaaS) providers using the technology not only creates challenges in maintaining the
to stay on the cutting edge, to supporting performance and availability of mission-critical
interactions and analytics at more traditional
applications and systems, but for the ongoing
enterprises within industries like finance,
day-to-day management of these environments
healthcare and education. Today, an open source
database is just as likely to be found behind a by time-strapped database teams. The ability
bank’s customer relationship management system to automate and simplify routine database
as it is under the hood of the intensive research maintenance tasks via cloud and rich data
center of a university. services is becoming increasingly important.
However, maintaining open source databases A modern storage environment should play a
such as MySQL and MongoDB can also lead to central role in simplifying the management of
growing pains in enterprises struggling to keep database environments and enabling greater
up with exploding data volumes and performance data mobility.
requirements. Storage—often an afterthought
in smaller-footprint, open-source projects—
needs to be addressed on an enterprise level. 2. Welcome to the Open-Source World
Performance tuning is a must-have, but this The days when enterprises maintained data
requires special expertise, and its benefits tend environments that were tied to a single vendor
to be limited. Increases in processing power or platform are gone. Even among enterprise
may also help boost performance, but constantly shops that were initially built around Oracle
upgrading processors and hardware stacks can be
relational database management systems, open-
expensive. Another option is to adopt clustering
source databases are proliferating, as shown
solutions to support larger workloads and
improve high availability. However, ultimately, in a survey conducted among members of the
the key to achieving maximum performance Independent Oracle Users Group by Unisphere
and scalability in an open-source database research, a division of Information Today. Open-
environment comes from a modern storage source databases proliferate, including adoption
environment, designed to efficiently deliver of MySQL (among 44%), PostgreSQL (22%),

1 August 2020
MongoDB (18%), MariaDB (11%) and CouchDB
(3%).[1]
Additional surveys confirm that today’s
enterprise data shops can only be characterized
by “polyglot persistence”—or the use of different
databases to handle different needs based on
and artificial intelligence. Licensing for per-user
or per-processor instances is also less expensive
and more open than those of commercial
databases.
The reasons for adopting open source databases
vary, but the two main factors driving adoption

Database Adoption by Brand at Oracle Enterprise Sites

Oracle (all versions): 81%
MySQL: 44%
Microsoft SQL Server: 64%
PostgreSQL: 22%
IBM DB2: 21%
MongoDB: 18%
SAP HANA: 12%
MariaDB: 11%
Amazon DynamoDB: 10%
CouchDB: 3%
0 20 40 60 80 100
Source: Unisphere Research/Information Today Inc�

the strengths of each particular database. The
average company now leverages more than
three database types for applications, a survey
from DZone confirms—with some reporting
up to nine different database types used.[2] For
example, new applications can be more readily
stood up with open-source databases, which are
more lightweight and quicker to deploy. Many
open-source databases are NoSQL databases that
more readily support unstructured data, which
is a huge part of the data now flowing through
enterprises and sought for advanced analytics
are achieving cost savings and avoiding vendor
lock-in. A survey published by Percona finds
77% see cost savings as a benefit, followed
by 56% citing vendor lock-in. Users are also
attracted by the community support they can
receive with open-source environments.[3] At
the same time, the expansion of open source
databases into mission-critical environments,
where they support large enterprise workloads,
can highlight limitations in your database and
traditional storage environment in areas such as

2 August 2020
performance, availability, capacity and time
to market.
3. Where Does All That Data Come From,
and Where Does It Go?
The key challenge for today’s enterprises is
supporting and enhancing the mobility of data—
data that comes from an ever-expanding array
of sources, including machines and sensors,
business users, external and social media sites,
and transaction systems. This data ends up in
data warehouses, data lakes and databases across
the enterprise.
With most applications considered mission-
critical in today’s enterprises, there’s almost
unanimous agreement that availability and
performance are the most important services
data shops can deliver. Businesses are online and
depend upon many elements to keep delivering.
The user base is no longer limited to employees
who will just sit and patiently wait until things
are restored—it involves customers and partners
who depend upon and expect information to be
delivered, and transactions to be completed and
updated, as soon as they happen.
In today’s data centers, everything that affects
the business matters. Close to two thirds of data
managers, 63%, responding to a survey from
Unisphere Research say much of what they
manage is mission-critical to their businesses—
defined as more than 25% of total database
installations. This survey also shows the pace
of data growth accelerating. At the time of the
survey, about 15% of respondents were in the
fastest-growing segment, with data growing at
a pace of 50% a year. However, within the next
three years, 31% expect to start seeing this pace
of growth. [4]
Data is pouring in from all corners of the
enterprise—from ERP, financial systems,
production systems, customer relationship
management systems, human capital
management systems, and everywhere else inside
and close to the enterprise. Data is also streaming
in from devices, sensors and systems across
the Internet of Things. This requires 24x7 data
monitoring and management as well. Add to this
the data coming out of transactions, social media
or other customer engagements which have value
in advanced analytics, artificial intelligence and
machine learning.
This data growth, of course, is translating into
very large databases and data sites that need to
be managed. While a multi-terabyte database
was seen as exclusive to large enterprises just a
few years ago, close to half of the data managers
in the survey report having databases exceeding
10 TBs right now, according to the Unisphere
Research study. Close to one-third manage
databases exceeding 50 terabytes in size. The
presence of such massive amounts of data
means greater care needs to be taken in keeping
information highly available, without the loss
of current data in the event of incidents or
performance slowdowns.
In fact, availability is the data issue most
likely to keep respondents up at night, the
survey shows. Close to two-thirds, 63%, say
the availability of applications is an “extremely
critical” concern for them, according to
Unisphere Research. About half also see database
and application performance as an extremely
critical concern. Overall, data managers and
3 August 2020
administrators are extremely active in their
efforts to assure constant, uninterrupted delivery
of data to their users and customers. The majority
of companies in the survey are taking steps to
boost the performance of their database or even
upgrade to new versions.
The pervasiveness of data, combined with
users executing queries from so many different
domains, calls for a high-performing and
resilient storage solution similar to that leveraged
by relational database management systems.
With this growth of database activity—and
proliferation of open source databases, the
challenge for data managers is assuring the
performance and availability of a wide range
of solutions from varying providers. Data
managers—database administrators, developers
and analysts—are not experts in these multiple
environments. Oracle databases, for example,
have different protocols than MariaDB databases.
This complicates important elements such as
overall performance, availability, backup and
recovery and disaster recovery.
4. Recommendations for Achieving a
Modern Storage Environment
The increasing complexity of managing
open-source databases up front increases the
urgency of maintaining a modern storage
environment that serves all platforms across the
enterprise. Such a storage platform can enhance
performance and simplify operations to the point
in which more expensive up-front methods, such
as processor upgrades or performance tuning can
be avoided. Traditional data storage systems such
as direct attached storage (DAS) lack the ability
to meet these modern data demands as they are
prone to disruptions, complexity and lack of
scalability—all of which leads to administrative
overhead. The following are recommendations
to achieve a modern storage environment that
incorporates open source databases:
•C
 onsider a “software defined storage”
strategy. Software defined storage, or SDS,
abstracts storage configuration away from
underlying physical hardware and database-
dependent features into a standardized and
accessible service layer.
•B
 uild in an intelligent storage layer. Such
an architecture—structured as a multicloud
data plane that eliminates the complexity
of operating siloed private and public cloud
environments—provides rich data services and
data mobility.
•T
 ransform storage infrastructure
incrementally. Many organizations have
networks of existing storage area networks
and network-attached storage arrays. While it
is cost-prohibitive and discursive to migrate
to newer more intelligent storage layers, such
capabilities can be built into new applications
and configurations.
•L
 ook to more rapid and efficient storage
technologies. The traditional magnetic disk
paradigm has proven to be too slow for todays’
always-on, real-time applications requirements,
as data needs to make round trips between
storage and random access memory in systems.
Flash storage arrays and in-memory computing
promise data access the instant it is required
by applications and users. Make sure your
vendor supports NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory
4 August 2020

Modern Storage Platform
Checklist
When evaluating a modern storage platform
for your open source database management
system, look for these key features and
capabilities:
•R  apid response time and low latency to
database queries
•S  peedy database cloning of production
databases
•N  on-stop availability of database with high
storage uptime to help meet SLA targets
• Good data reduction that can provide
effective use of capacity and lower TCO
• Consistent experience and data mobility
across on-premises and public cloud.
• Open and efficient APIs
• Space-efficient snapshots for database
recovery and cloning
• Easy setup and maintenance which
reduces administrative overhead
• Non-disruptive upgrades
• Pay as you go billing flexibility. that
allows buying of storage based on actual
consumption
• End-to-end encryption and ransomware
protection
express) and NVMe-oF (Non-Volatile Memory
Express over Fabrics) storage interconnect
technologies, which are based primarily on
PCIe, a fast-evolving standard that leverages
flash storage.
•  Look to the cloud. Today’s cloud providers—
particularly Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS),
Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Database
as a Service (DBaaS) vendors—offer almost
unlimited capacity, available on a subscription
or usage basis. Even data warehouses and
data lakes can be efficiently managed in
the cloud.
Today’s environment offers many choices
for applying the right database for the right
application. However, with so many choices
comes more responsibility for the proper and
efficient storage of data. A modern storage
environment provides the foundation for a
high-performing data-driven enterprise.
5. Optimize Your Open Source Database
Environment with Pure Storage
Whether your workload is transactional, data
warehousing or conducting analytics, Pure
Storage® can optimize your open source database
deployment and improve your application
performance. Pure delivers a modern data
experience that empowers organizations to run
their operations as a true, automated, storage
as-a-service model seamlessly across multiple
clouds. Pure helps companies use more of their
data, while reducing the complexity and expense
of managing the infrastructure behind it. Pure’s
flash storage solutions are purpose-built to
5 August 2020
support the modern data experience and deliver
simplicity, flexibility and reliability. FlashArray™
is the industry’s first all-flash 100 percent
NVMe shared accelerated storage designed for
mainstream enterprise deployments. FlashBlade™
is the industry’s first unified fast file and object
(UFFO) storage platform for modern data and
applications. Pure as-a-Service™ provides storage
as a service for on-premises and public cloud that
unifies hybrid clouds with a single subscription.
Pure1® enables self-driving storage with full-
stack, AI-powered data-storage management and
monitoring.
• Faster applications with rapid response times
can build customer value and deliver an
amazing user experience. Hence fast data is
agile data. Pure can help speed databases with
low latency to support business applications.
Reduce the time and cost of database
activities—including copy, clone, and refresh—
and provide quick provisioning via APIs, with
data copies for dev/test so that your teams are
always working off the latest copies of data.
Pure offers granular data reduction necessary
for virtually any application: pattern removal,
deduplication, compression, deep reduction,
and copy reduction. This embedded data-
reduction capability minimizes both capacity
needs and capacity costs.
• Pure solutions are easy to set up and smart
enough to manage themselves. This minimizes
administrative overhead and eliminates risk.
Pure’s cloud-based management tool, Pure1,
makes it quick and easy to monitor your
storage, wherever you are. Pure1 Meta®, which
is an AI-driven workload planner can provide
an optimal outlook by right-sizing capacity
allocation.
• Pure solutions provide scalability and
uninterrupted uptime, which is critical to
meeting customer SLAs. Pure FlashArray
provides six-nines availability (99.9999%
uptime), inclusive of upgrades and
maintenance, across both hardware and
software. Additionally, Pure’s Evergreen™
storage program allows for non-disruptive
upgrades while supporting long-term
compatibility, IT agility, and peace of mind.
With Pure as-a-Service, you can purchase
storage in a cloud-like fashion to adapt to
fluctuating capacity requirements. When
it comes to data protection, options start
with instant snapshot copies to synchronous
replication with ActiveCluster™ and replication
resiliency for rapid-restore backup and
recovery. Pure’s asynchronous replication with
ActiveDR™ provides a “near-zero” recovery
point objective. Combined, these offerings can
help limit downtime, data loss, and risk.
• Pure’s cloud data services, together with on-
premises cloud data infrastructure, enable hybrid
applications that run seamlessly across clouds.
Take advantage of the agility and innovation of
multiple clouds, building applications once, and
then running them seamlessly on-premises and
in the public cloud. Pure1 enables cloud-based,
fleet management; advanced capacity planning;
and workload simulation to deliver resources
faster, control costs and forecast IT need. Pure
as-a-Service delivers pay-as-you-go billing
with scale up and down flexibility, competitive
on-demand rates and unified subscriptions
for both on-premises and cloud. The Modern
6 August 2020
 Data Experience from Pure Storage leverages
hybrid mobility alongside consistent storage
services, resiliency, and APIs across your hybrid
environment to give you the most flexibility
possible with your database deployments.

For more information, visit Pure Storage for Open

Source Databases today.

Addition Resources:
• FlashArray
• Cloud Block Store
• Pure1
• Pure as-a-Service
•  ure Solutions for MySQL, MongoDB,
P
PostgreSQL and Cassandra

[1] 2019 IOUG Databases in the Cloud Survey, prepared for Unisphere
Research/Information Today, Inc. in cooperation with Amazon Web
Services, January 2019.http://www.ioug.org/d/do/8551

[2] 2019 Open Source Database Report, Kristi Anderson, DZone, January
17, 2020. https://dzone.com/articles/2019-open-source-database-re- About Pure:
port-top-databases-pub
Get more from your data. Pure Storage
[3] 
2019 Open Source Data Management Software Survey, Percona, empowers innovators to build a better
2019https://learn.percona.com/hubfs/Percona_Open_Source_DataMa- world with data by delivering a simple,
nagement_Software_Survey_2019.pdf
evergreen platform that enables
[4] Achieving Your 2018 Database Goals Through Replication: Real-World organizations of all kinds to turn data
Market Insights and Best Practices, Unisphere Research, a division of into intelligence and advantage.
Information Today, Inc., March 2018. https://www.dbta.com/DBTA-Down-
loads/ResearchReports/Achieving-Your-Database-Goals-Through-Repli-
cation-Real-World-Market-Insights-and-Best-Practices-8555.aspx

7 August 2020