4 Database Mistakes that Most Companies Learn the Hard Way

As these four critical mistakes made by major businesses prove, utilizing the appropriate database will allow your business to run more efficiently and successfully. A good database system will save your company time and money.

Mistake #1: Being Unprepared for Downtime

This past February, the Amazon homepage was down for approximately 49 minutes. Amazon, one of the biggest retailers across the globe, was not prepared for this malfunction. The retailer has an average of $116,229.07 in sales per minute. The blip in their database system caused them over $5 million dollars in sales. As database management systems become more complex, it is necessary for organizations like Amazon to integrate a proven technology to handle their data and information.

Mistake #2: Inability to Support Big Data

On August 22nd, 2013, a technical glitch in the database systems of NASDAQ caused its trading platforms to be halted for more than three hours. Their database system was only able to handle 10,000 messages per second. They were receiving almost double that number. Their database system exceed capacity, causing failure and exposing the flaw in their software code. NASDAQ claimed it took only 30 minutes to resolve this issue, but it took more than 3 hours to test and evaluate reopening the market. NASDAQ needed a database management system to keep up with the explosion of data demands. Because of their inability to support big data, NASDAQ lost money, credibility and authority in the New York Stock Exchange.

Mistake #3: Relying on Redundancies

In February of 2013, Microsoft’s Safefood 360 was inaccessible for several hours. There was an outage in Microsoft’s database management system that was caused by an expired security certificate. This security certificate was applied to all data centers across the database. The backup database system could not be enforced because the security certificate was linked to that as well. Safefood had to backtrack and redesign their whole disaster recovery strategy. Microsoft needed a database management system that could deliver requirements, offer shortcuts to stability, and provide uninterrupted service.

Mistake #4: Being Unprepared for Outside Threats

In August, The New York Times website went down due to a “malicious external attack” by the Syrian Electronic Army. Viewers who tried to access the site saw the logo of the Syrian Electronic Army and a message that the site had been hacked. Employees of the New York Times were cautioned not to send emails or any type of information during that time. Luckily, The Times had a backup system and placed articles on their backup site. The attack on the database cost the New York Times hours of critical revenue and the potential loss of vital and private information. Not to mention they became the butt of a joke on Twitter, putting a dent in their reputation. A database management system that is secure, trustworthy, and protected is essential when dealing with major businesses and corporations.

ALTIBASE HDB™ is designed to handle large amounts of data and provides high performance computing solutions and massive scalability. This database management system is a unified solution for these businesses for storage, uptime and data output. IT leaders recognize Altibase for its excellence in database management software, revolutionary R&D and leadership in the In-Memory computing space.  Click here to read more about how ALTIBASE HDB™ can benefit any business.