Businesses face significant challenges to continuously manage and optimise their databases, extract valuable information from them, and then to share and report the insights gained from ongoing analysis of the data. As data continues to grow exponentially, they must address key issues to unlock the full potential of their data asset across the whole business. This article explores the common data administration challenges faced by businesses and offers practical solutions to overcome them.

Managing Growing Data Sets

The relentless growth of data presents a formidable challenge for organisations. To harness its potential, data must be clean, validated, and organised. Inadequate scalability can lead to performance issues and gaps in data. Establishing robust, secure, and scalable data pipelines is crucial to ensure the integrity and usefulness of the information.

Adapting to Outdated Infrastructure

Many organisations cling to traditional on premise data infrastructure, which can result in increased costs, resource demands, and slower performance. Often legacy database schemas outlive their creators, so upkeep and troubleshooting become time-consuming and awkward diversions. Partnering with an external support partner to uncover inconsistencies and errors, modernise schema, and optimise performance can be a cost-effective way to refresh legacy databases. However embracing modern cloud solutions is essential for long-term success. Hybrid and multi-cloud approaches offer flexibility, security, and cost-effectiveness, allowing businesses to leverage the best of both worlds.

Addressing Resource Constraints

As data volumes surge, in-house data administration teams may face overwhelming workloads. Supplementing internal resources with third-party expertise can alleviate the burden, enabling teams to focus on optimising data infrastructure and maximising its value.

• Lower labour costs by paying less for specialised services,
• Larger talent pool available by accessing experts from different locations and fields,
• Focus on the essential business activities by delegating the most time-consuming and tedious tasks,
• Risk sharing by transferring some of the responsibility and liability to the outsourcing partner,
• Increased process efficiency by improving the quality and speed of the outsourced functions.

Ensuring Data Security

Balancing data security with accessibility is a critical concern. With the proliferation of data sources and increasing velocity, safeguarding information becomes more complex. Adhering to industry best practices, such as ISO 27001 or Cyber Security Essentials, is essential. Partnering with a reputable data engineering company can provide robust security measures to mitigate risks effectively.

Database Services offered by Ardent

In addition to the fundamental solutions outlined above, Ardent provides a range of specialised services to further enhance your data administration capabilities:

Schema Design Optimisation and Transformation:

Ardent's skilled professionals excel in seamlessly integrating new schema for additional systems, ensuring your data architecture remains flexible and adaptable to evolving business needs.

They are also adept at utilising SQL Server Reporting and Integration Services, streamlining data processes for seamless communication between different systems and safeguarding data integrity. In addition, AWS Glue, a fully managed ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) service, simplifies data movement between various data stores while performing necessary transformations. It offers capabilities for data schema detection, cataloguing, and integration.

Reporting Services:

Leverage powerful reporting tools like SSRS, Power Bi, Tableau and Amazon QuickSight for comprehensive, actionable insights and dynamic data visualisation. Utilising SQL server reporting or Amazon RDS for SQL Server and services like AWS Glue enables seamless communication and data security between different systems.

Database Health Checks:

Proactive maintenance is key to a robust data infrastructure. Ardent offers thorough database health checks to identify and rectify potential issues before they impact performance, ensuring your data remains reliable and accessible.

Monitoring and Observability

Ardent offers comprehensive, around-the-clock data support services to guarantee the security, accessibility, reliability and efficiency of your data.

Cloud-scale solutions such as Prometheus and Datadog, AWS CloudWatch and AWS CloudTrail services provide monitoring, observability, logging, and auditing capabilities. CloudWatch allows you to set up alarms and monitor various metrics related to your databases, while CloudTrail logs API calls and provides an audit trail of actions taken in your AWS account.

Observability also tracks consumption in warehouse solutions such as Snowflake and Databricks. When consumption is opaque and budgets are being used faster than expected, tracking this can help to scale cost optimisation and operational team requirements.

We continually benchmark our services and the tools we use against industry best-practice through our R&D Innovation Hub and continuous accreditation of the latest state-of-the-art solutions and key technologies for operational monitoring and support

Overcoming data administration challenges with Ardent

Effectively managing data administration challenges is paramount for organisations seeking to derive maximum value from their data. By addressing issues related to growing data sets, modernising infrastructure, allocating resources strategically, and prioritising data security, businesses can position themselves for success in the data-driven era.

Partnering with experienced professionals like Ardent can provide the expertise and support needed to navigate these challenges and unlock the full potential of your data.

Contact Adam Nichols at Ardent today on +44 (0)7459 798 870or email adam.nichols@ardentisys.com to embark on your journey towards optimised data administration.