Obsolete programs are powering 97% of US database systems — and the reason why won’t surprise anyone Craig Hale | usagoldmines.com

• Unsupported database management software is increasingly risky from a security point of view
• The biggest barriers preventing organizations from upgrading include cost and complexity
• Businesses aren’t happy with current inefficiencies, downtime and latency

An overwhelming majority (97%) of US database administrators are running obsolete software, according to the latest State of Open Source Database Management Report by Percona.

But organizations aren’t neglecting upgrades, because the report warns that upgrading a production database can actually be a major and risky project that may even impose more operational risks than running unsupported software.

For many, the cost alone is a major obstacle, with substantial engineering time, testing, infrastructure changes and cloud changes all adding to the total cost of change.

Why are so many US organizations using outdated database software?

Percona highlighted that upgrading a database isn’t as simple as installing a software update, because in most cases, it would require an entire cross-stack migration involving other pieces of software and subscriptions.

Nearly one in three (31%) said cloud costs are their biggest barrier to reducing the total cost of ownership of their database estates, but licensing costs (23%), tool sprawl (17%) and vendor lock-in (12%) were also major worries.

The report cites MySQL as a key example, highlighting how the major architectural changes involved with 8.0 made it a technical nightmare for 5.7 users to upgrade.

However, while the change itself can be a costly, and frankly massive, one, remaining on unsupported database management software creates its own security risks. This is especially pronounced because databases can often contain an organization’s most valuable and confidential information.

There is a motive to upgrade, though, because 42% of Percona’s respondents cited inefficiency as a current drawback, with downtime (40%) and latency (35%) also slowing them down.

Looking ahead, the first stage is for companies to actually plan their migrations rather than continue to postpone them. It’s only by starting the ball rolling that they can begin to explore how to consolidate stacks and improve overall efficiency and costs.