Modern Database Management Best Practices in 2023

8 min read
Dec 10, 2022 4:00:00 PM

The business has historically relied heavily on data. Information is currently gathered, stored, and disseminated through a variety of technological tools. 

This change has made it more crucial than ever to consider the best practices to maximize database management inside your company. This will help your business get ready for any issues it may encounter and guarantee that all valuable and high-quality information is safely preserved. 

These days, corporations utilize ML, AI, and cloud technologies to automate processes. Additionally, the database administrator's role is continually changing. Database administrators are becoming sophisticated data engineers and professionals, thanks to the strategic role played by DBA specialists. The modern database administrator is more of a database architect than a database administrator, and organizations today need to adjust to this transformation. No matter how new technologies operate, they change the way databases function. 

The vitality of the company's SQL server, Oracle, and NoSQL database systems depends on the DBA's primary responsibility. The innovative technology they are bringing is transforming how jobs are conducted. 

Data is a huge component of modern business, being able to successfully manage and make the most of it is essential for success in the digital era. Most organizations now rely heavily on data, but this data is only helpful when it is correctly categorized and available. 

Additionally, there have been significant changes in the way that data is provided and kept. A new set of data management skills are now required as cloud-based technology increasingly replaces the local servers of the past. We'll be looking more closely at contemporary database administration best practices in this piece, as well as what database managers should be doing to realize the full potential of the modern database. 

How Can an Organization Boost Database Efficiency? 

Database administrators are spared from routine operations that need human upkeep, thanks to these new automated jobs. To grow, update, protect, and minimize expenses along with the use of database resources, they are shifting their attention to enhanced architecture. The database administrator should retain attention to adhering to the best practices required for sustaining the overall health of the database system while the business adapts to the aforementioned dynamics. 

Best Practices for Modern Database Management  

Consider using these database administration best practices and data management advice to help you get the most out of your database. TransformHub, being one of the top digital transformation companies in Singapore, also suggests and implements these top practices to ensure data efficiency. 

1. Establish business objectives 

Your company needs should be reflected in an actionable, focused database management plan, which should also include the metrics you'll use to gauge your progress. You run the danger of squandering internal resources collecting incorrect data, amassing too much data to utilize successfully, or missing significant data opportunities if you don't take enough time to decide what data to collect and how you can use it effectively. Establishing pertinent company objectives offers you a compass to use so you don't get lost.  

It's important to think about the following applications for corporate data: 

  • Profiling and targeting: Customer profiles are a popular use of information collection and analysis, but the data you are gathering may also be beneficial. A clever method to begin making sense of the accumulating data is to create profiles from it. 
  • Finding patterns and trends: You may get strategic insight into your sector and the buying habits of the people who use your goods and services by observing customer trends, sales trends, and other patterns. For SaaS enterprises and other organizations that might strategically benefit from understanding trends, tracking usage patterns, consumption trends, and other factors is very valuable. 
  • Processing automation and improvement: Data may also be used to restructure your workflows, put automation in place, and make necessary modifications. Analyzing your data in detail could highlight areas with potential. 
  • Utilizing prior experiences: Making business decisions with the help of prior experiences and accumulated data is the next best thing to gazing into a fortune-telling crystal ball. 

Database administrators are in a strong position to assist with sorting through these data uses and figuring out whether other options exist for your company because they have a close watch on your data. 

2. Create rules and processes, such as backup and restoration protocols 

By developing precise backup and recovery processes and policies, your team will be better equipped to respond if the worst comes. As you think through your worst-case situations, decide on clever responses you can plan. This exercise will keep the team on task. 

You may use flowcharts and process mapping to help your team see everything in one place while you prepare your disaster response. 

The following points are sure to be of help. 

  • Organize and collect your data: Your staff should get training in your rules and processes for gathering data and entering it into the database. Make sure everyone is aware of how software contributes and what function AI and automation plays given the role that automation currently plays in this. 
  • Keep data integrity in mind: Create a plan to limit database errors as much as possible and enable your team to identify and fix them if and when they do arise. 
  • Analyze your data: Often check your databases for correctness and contamination. 
  • Set benchmarks: Your DBA should assist in creating alerts to safeguard the database by highlighting issues as they arise. Your staff should be aware of the objectives your company has for the database and be ready to respond appropriately if those objectives change. 
  • Create a process map: Your firm can troubleshoot and prepare more effectively if you can observe how your database operates, and the full process, from data gathering to processing, in action. 
3. Give priority to security 

Even while not all disasters can be completely predicted or avoided, you may strengthen data security and control the risks associated with the worst-case situations for your database. Your greatest options for defending what's vital are maintenance, backup, and recovery preparation. 

In the struggle against data loss, security breaches, and database compromise, DBAs who are knowledgeable about industry best practices for database security and are equipped to handle your database security successfully are crucial partners. 

Keep in mind the below mentioned points. 

  • Make a thorough maintenance schedule: Regularly maintain your database. Data security must remain a top priority and not fade into the background. For example, you don't want to find yourself having to "catch up" on security after a hack. Create a strategy that your team may employ as a preventative measure; it is simpler than a remedy.
  • Create your backup and recovery plans: Make sure your backup and recovery approach still works with your security plan, team, and database by putting it together and reviewing it often.
  • Develop the security expertise of your staff: Security concerns alter with changes in technology, business expansion, and database characteristics. Your staff should keep current with the market and manage to anticipate the demands of your database. 
  • Use automation to improve security: Additionally, automation can assist your DBAs; for instance, you can plan regular automatic backups. It is considered an important step in digital translation solutions. 

Read Also: Common Database Management Challenges and How to Fix Them 

4. Focus on the quality of the data 

By eliminating data that doesn't match the requirements and modifying the quality standards to reflect your shifting strategy, the database administrator should aim to promote a high degree of data quality. 

  • Be SMART: Possessing SMART data quality measurements is ideal since they are "specific, quantifiable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound" (SMART). You may create data quality measures for your company that are practical and effective with the aid of SMART. Metrics that don't meet the SMART criteria are, at best, arbitrary "nice to have" targets. Your team will, at worst, be aiming at shifting objectives because of these measurements. 
  • Empower your data: Ensure your DBA has everything they need to accomplish their job as they go about preserving the quality of your data. This will empower your data steward. Allow them to enforce your data quality standards, include them in team interactions, and make sure organizational resources are accessible to support them in protecting the data. The very last thing you want is for the data czar to be working without management or team support.  
5. Reduce duplicate data 

Duplicate data might delay your efforts and lower the efficiency of your database. Duplicates frequently squander internal resources and require your staff to work twice as hard. For example, if a customer record in a CRM is duplicated, the support staff may spend twice as long solving the same issue. 

  • Share the fundamentals of data quality across the company: Even employees who don't deal directly with the DBA or the database should be aware of the fundamentals of safeguarding data quality. Someone who doesn't understand the consequences of making duplicate records might burden your staff with additional effort. Everyone should be instructed on how to produce high-quality data and what good data looks like. 
  • Eliminate segregated data management and access: You run the danger of duplication and inaccuracies when different departments within your business administer their databases or distinct sections of one without outside guidance or involvement. These silo databases may exist without adhering to criteria for data quality and duplication. 
  • Prepare a duplicate data strategy and test your database: If your business has duplication more frequently than you would like, create a plan to address the sources of duplication. To ensure that these adjustments are controlling the issue properly, test your database often. 
6. Make the data easily accessible 

Take it from the best digital transformation services company, TransformHub, you must guarantee that the data will be useful to your users. Your database should be easy to use and comfortable for all internal users, end users, and any stakeholders who utilize it. 

  • Design and manage for the user: Manage for the user. Remember that some development and management techniques or quick cuts could be effective for your team but bad from a UX/usability or performance standpoint. 
  • Obtain user input on your database: You should be able to get opinions from your users on how well the database serves their needs. Depending on the stakeholders you have, you may decide how to obtain this input; such methods include conducting a poll, convening a panel or committee meeting, or designating a DBA as a point of contact. 

DBAs may more efficiently maintain databases by using the best database management practices. The DBA's work requires the appropriate tools and assistance from your team to protect data and maintain the health of your database in today's multi-cloud settings and more complicated data management systems.  

Setting Customized Best Practices for Your Database with TransformHub 

Business leaders and owners may easily guarantee the efficient operation of their websites if they adhere to the aforementioned best practices for establishing their business goals. The company's database management administrators can properly maintain their databases daily by staying on top of the duties that are allocated to them. 

If you own a small firm or don't have a staff of knowledgeable database management administrators, you should enlist the aid of experts like TransformHub which offers the best digital transformation solutions. The experts in database management and optimization have abilities and an understanding of the most recent technology. Our professionals are knowledgeable and have a successful track record in the industry while looking for the best remote database business for your requirements. We can help you make sure your database is taken care of, providing you with the peace of mind you need to successfully concentrate on the important issues facing your company. 

A critical first step in creating a superior data management system for your company is selecting the right services. Remember that the ultimate goal is to create a modular architecture that can first connect to and organize a variety of data sources and analytic techniques. 

TransformHub enters the scene. You need to choose a customer data platform that will enable you to engage with your market accurately and quickly, as well as provide you with a clear and comprehensive understanding of your relationships and user data. To ensure you have the most complete and accurate view of your data, you want your data management system to simplify your responsibilities by automatically enriching and cleaning data. We've arrived! To talk more about this shift, get in touch with us.