Small Inefficiencies Add Up to Big Slowdowns

What's the real problem behind the problem when your database begins to crawl and your very business is threatened? To find out what the simple answer is, keep reading below!

In life, the presenting problem is rarely the problem. So what’s the real problem behind the problem when your database begins to crawl and your very business is threatened? The answer is simple: sand. Once, I was running a half marathon, and around mile three or four, a guy in US military uniform, boots, pants, shirt, jacket runs past me. He’s even wearing his hat—and he’s got a huge backpack on his back. I’m doing the best I can just to keep going and I’m sure not wearing a backpack.

How much faster do you think he could have run if he didn’t have that backpack on his back? That got me thinking about what was in the backpack—and what could have been removed to lighten the load.

Like a backpack, your database can get heavier over time, and the increasing weight causes it to work harder, move slower—and unless there’s an intervention—ultimately fail. But let’s stay with the backpack illustration. Imagine that you’ve got a backpack that’s got underwear, socks, a couple of shirts, some bubble gum, a pack of Reese’s, a bunch of wrappers, and a 50-pound bag of sand.

If you could only remove one thing from your backpack, what would it be? That’s right—the bag of sand.

Your database has a bag of sand in it—maybe several. If you could reduce that 50-pound bag of sand to the size of a baggie, your database is going to run orders of magnitude faster, be healthier, and deliver higher-quality service to the organization.

It sounds obvious—but people don’t see the bags of sand in their backpacks—especially since the sand may not even be in a bag. When they casually reach in the backpack, they might see a little bit of sand, some quarters, a Reese's pack, and some bubble gum. They think, “Well, the sand doesn’t weigh much.” That’s a potentially fatal misunderstanding—because whether you see it or not—all of those individual grains of sand are weighing your database down.

While grains of sand look largely similar to the naked eye, you can easily see the differences under the microscope. It’s the same with your database. It’s filled with small scripts, and queries and items. They look insignificant, but in aggregate they are overwhelming. Our patented, award-winning technology looks for items that are similar, groups them together, and deals with them in a highly efficient way, reducing your 50-pound bag of sand to a sandwich-sized baggie.

And that gives you the speed you need to win, whether through:

• Improved customer experience due to speed
  
• More sales and clients
  
• Improved ROI on your IBM DB2 investment
  

Your half marathon is coming—maybe it’s Black Friday/Cyber Monday, or open enrollment, or a viral tweet, or a new product that causes the world to stampede to you all at once. And when it does, the race is on. You owe it to yourself, your team, and your company to make sure your database is ready. So don’t delay, contact the DBI team and take the 15-Second Challenge today. We’ll lighten your load, and give you the competitive edge.