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Are legacy databases holding your business back? Here’s how Exasol can help 

Despite the level of investment in, and demand for, data analytics use cases across many organizations, those that deliver tangible ROI are few and far between. Fixing this problem is becoming even more critical as economic challenges loom and organizations are forced to do more with less with their IT budgets. So where are the challenges stemming from?  

A lot centers around legacy databases. Many cannot provide the resilience and scalability required to support time-sensitive analytics workloads and meet demanding high-performance computing challenges that the success of modern businesses relies on. In fact, recent data shows that 95% of businesses still struggle with operational challenges around data and analytics and 88% continue to be hindered by legacy technologies. 

Let’s dive further into some of the challenges legacy databases are causing, and how they can impact businesses’ data-driven initiatives.  

Inability to scale 

Organizations that use legacy systems and point solutions often lack the deep analytical capabilities and scale required to support complex workloads. Real limitations are placed on the ROI these organizations can expect to achieve and things like Loading...real-time analytics can seem a pipe dream.  

Working with real-time analytics allows data-rich applications and services such as customer churn analysis, predictive maintenance and more, to operate to their full potential and enable teams to act on timely insights. So a lack of real-time analytics capabilities means businesses are stuck being reactive rather than proactive with their data analytics. This can lead to situations where, for example, they find out from customer churn analysis why a customer has already left, as opposed to being alerted in advance and being able to take action to encourage them to change their minds and stay.  

Such data bottlenecks mean that any attempt at running ad-hoc queries plunges analytics teams into endless rounds of tuning, distracting them from other critical projects. This is already a huge problem.

Time-consuming maintenance 

Database administrators and IT staff spend too much time planning, provisioning, deploying, and maintaining their legacy database environments. Even tasks such as backups, tuning, and security optimizations can increase staff toil put a heavy burden on staff and become even more time-consuming as their underlying infrastructure becomes increasingly complex and data volumes and varieties continue to grow. Sixty-two billion data and analytic work hours are lost annually worldwide due to analytic inefficiencies. Imagine what we’re missing out on. 

Not only does a lack of automated processes prevent database performance from constantly improving, but also these tedious administrative and data management tasks prevent IT teams from addressing more strategic business needs and focusing on high-value innovative projects like new business initiatives. This also increases the chances that technical support and developers fall behind on updating security measures or patches to prevent data breaches, making these legacy systems more vulnerable to cyber risks, which can cost on average $4.35 million for organizations. The same goes for keeping up with data compliance regulations, which can lead to heavy fines from regulators.  

Businesses are undoubtedly feeling the pain of these challenges on a daily basis – but it doesn’t have to be like that.  

How Exasol can help 

While there’s no silver bullet to becoming a fully optimized, effective data-driven organization, there are existing solutions that can help. The 2023 Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study commissioned by Exasol and conducted by Forrester Consulting reveals how Exasol addresses these challenges by effectively scaling your data analytics capabilities without compromising performance or cost. Based on Forrester’s own financial analysis methodology and in-depth interviews with Exasol customers, the study found that the composite organization comprised of customers interviewed realized an ROI of 320% over three years by improving operational efficiency, database performance, and offering a simple and flexible data infrastructure. The study is essential reading if you want to hear the truth about how your peers are solving these data analytics challenges and find out what you can do to make a positive change in your organization.  

To access the full study and learn how Exasol helped customers do more with less when it comes to data analytics, download the study here.

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