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Have you ever thought about what would happen if your website’s database just disappeared? Unlike code that can be replaced or modified relatively easily, database-level issues are more serious.
When your database crashes and your last backup is ancient, or even worse, you don’t have it all, you’re in for a potentially disastrous situation that might be challenging or even impossible to fix.
That’s why your database is such a critical part of your application’s lifecycle. It’s home to all your essential information, like transaction records, user credentials, and everything else that keeps your app running smoothly.
In this article, we’re excited to share IT Outposts’ take on building cloud database systems that thrive when the pressure’s on, bounce back from disasters, and grow with your business.
Opt for Managed Cloud Databases, as Self-Hosting Isn’t Worth the Risk
Considering how important databases are for any business, we strongly advise against deploying them on standalone servers. Instead, we recommend taking advantage of solid cloud database services like the ones from Amazon Web Services (AWS).
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Request demoFurthermore, if there’s an issue with your server (whether it’s physical damage or some sort of software failure), and you don’t have backups saved elsewhere, you risk losing your data. At that point, recovering the database can be nearly impossible.
On the flip side, with AWS, even if a server completely fails, replicas are safely stored on different physical machines. This means your data is always recoverable, which helps keep your business up and running.
Strengthen Your Database Security Beyond the Basics
As we’ve already mentioned, Amazon gives you some great security features right out of the box for your provisioned databases, keeping them productive and secure from the outset. You can adjust various settings, like how many connections your database can handle, to fit your specific needs. But in today’s world, leaning on just one layer of security isn’t likely to cut it anymore.
That’s why we take extra steps to enhance security for each part of your setup, going beyond just external defenses. For example, we don’t place your database on a shared network but set up a dedicated network environment just for your database. Plus, we keep external access tightly controlled, allowing connections only from trusted bastion hosts or specific IP addresses. All these settings are customized to fit your unique requirements.
What’s more, our strategy is designed to be future-proof: we build your infrastructure so that if you decide to amp up security later, there’s no need to move your database to new networks. The groundwork is already there. Any additional security tweaks can be performed at the code level or through some database configuration changes. Ultimately, you won’t have to worry about disruptive infrastructure overhauls.
Keep Your Data Safe and Sound Across Multiple Locations
We prioritize high availability and often suggest distributing database infrastructure across different data centers. For example, your primary database might be located in Krakow, while another data center operates in Warsaw. This ensures that your database is always reachable, even if something out of the ordinary happens. It’s pretty unlikely that a lightning bolt will hit both places at once, right?
And let’s not forget, this method adds an extra layer of security on top of what Amazon already has in place. AWS does a fantastic job managing their servers and offers solid database protection. But with our approach of using multiple locations, we’re giving your business a little extra cushion to bounce back from just about any disaster.
Combat High Latency With Serverless Aurora
When it comes to battling high latency, we often suggest using Serverless Aurora. This type of database can automatically scale up or down based on what you need, so you won’t have to worry about paying for extra database capacity that’s just sitting idle. Plus, the scaling occurs quickly enough that you probably won’t even notice any slowdowns in your database operations. So, if you do run into performance hiccups, you can rest assured they’re not coming from your database.
Compared to old-school static databases, this approach usually means fewer high-latency problems. Just think about it: if you have a database on a fixed server that’s handling what seems like a manageable number of users, a sudden rush of customers can ruin the balance. You’d need to increase your database resources immediately, which can sometimes lead to frustrating downtime.
Implement Backup Procedures
What’s great about incremental backups is that they provide the opportunity to recover your data at a specific moment in time. So, if you notice something went wrong in your database around a certain hour, you can roll it back to just before the issue, say 1 or 2 PM on that day.
Additionally, we can make manual snapshots whenever you need them, along with regularly scheduled snapshots each month or year. There are plenty of options to customize your backup strategy to fit your business requirements.
Monitor Performance with Advanced Analytics Tools
To make sure no issues occur in the near future, it’s best to track information about the number of instances, load distribution across each instance, RAM and CPU usage, and more.Amazon also offers Performance Insights. This tool lets you detect slow queries and understand how they’re performing. With this data, you can track down any queries in your database that might be slowing operations.
If you’re looking for more than what the basic AWS tools provide, we can set up an integration with the Grafana Prometheus stack. This way, all your logs and metrics can be gathered in one easy-to-navigate location. We connect CloudWatch as a source so you can collect metrics from all sorts of Amazon services, including EKS, database activities, and key Kubernetes metrics. This way, you can monitor everything through Grafana, so you won’t have to switch between different dashboards anymore.
Conclusion
When it comes to your database infrastructure, the decisions you make today will shape not just how smoothly your application runs tomorrow but also whether it can weather any challenges that come its way.
There are numerous ways to set up your database, and the right choice depends on what your business needs, how much traffic you expect, your security goals, your budget, and where you see your company heading.
The IT Outposts team is here to assess your requirements and come up with the best possible solution. Our unique fixed-price package AMICSS Infrastructure covers everything from A to Z in the entire infrastructure setup, including IaC, multiple environments, VPC networking, database, and more.
Ready to build a bulletproof database system for your business? Reach out to our team today for a free consultation and find out about our AMICSS Infrastructure package. Your business data deserves top-notch protection!
I am an IT professional with over 10 years of experience. My career trajectory is closely tied to strategic business development, sales expansion, and the structuring of marketing strategies.
Throughout my journey, I have successfully executed and applied numerous strategic approaches that have driven business growth and fortified competitive positions. An integral part of my experience lies in effective business process management, which, in turn, facilitated the adept coordination of cross-functional teams and the attainment of remarkable outcomes.
I take pride in my contributions to the IT sector’s advancement and look forward to exchanging experiences and ideas with professionals who share my passion for innovation and success.