The Future of the DBMS Market Is Cloud

This Gartner whitepaper, sponsored by Striim, offers a glimpse for where databases are headed: “The Future of the DBMS Market Is Cloud.” Database management system deployments and innovations are increasingly cloud-first or cloud-only. Data and analytics leaders selecting DBMS solutions must accept that cloud DBMS is the future and must plan for shifting spending, staffing and development accordingly.

Some key takeaways from the report are:

• Cloud service providers (CSPs) are becoming the new default platform for database management. These platforms consist of both native CSP offerings and third-party independent software vendor (ISV) offerings that run on CSP infrastructure.
• According to Gartner, on-premises DBMS revenue is decreasing and most DBMS revenue growth is in the cloud (68%). On-premises growth (32%) is rarely from new on-premises deployments; it is generally due to price increases and forced upgrades undertaken to avoid risk.
• Gartner’s 2018 DBMS revenue numbers show the overall DBMS market growth at 13% and 18.4%, respectively, in the past two years. AWS and Microsoft represent 72% and 75% of total market growth during this period, respectively.
• As new applications move to the cloud, data and analytics capabilities follow. Contemporary business initiatives, such as digital business transformation, require greater diversity of data and analytics capabilities, causing organizations to look to the cloud for flexibility and agility.

The report examines how traditional DBMS vendors that began providing on-premises solutions continue to have substantial numbers of customers and a revenue stream dominated by maintenance and support on their existing installations — sufficient to plan for and execute a product transition strategy to the cloud. They have moved at varying rates to make this transition, and now, although all the leading vendors can run on the major cloud platforms, they find themselves competing with aggressive competitors. These competitors have multiple specialized offerings in their portfolios, both relational and non-relational, often designed to be highly compatible to ease migration using tools provided by the CSPs. The presence of open-source-based and often API-compatible alternatives from the CSPs and others is changing the opportunities for data and analytics leaders to fine-tune their own portfolios.

Download the new report, courtesy of Striim, “The Future of the DBMS Market Is Cloud,” to help plan the future for your DBMS technology and how the cloud may move front and center.