SlamData / Datavail Exhibit Interview
Join Datavail’s VP of Development, Tuning and Automation and Database Trends and Applications as they discuss the topic of building a database monitoring tool using Splunk and how we can extract data from other sources to view end to end, as each of the parts relate to each other.
Show Transcript
Stephen Faig: Stephen Faig with Database Trends and Applications here at the Data Summit conference in New York City with Chuck Ezell from Datavail. Chuck, what are you here to talk about with attendees today?
Chuck Ezell: Well, we're going to spend a little time talking about how to build a database monitoring tool with Splunk.
Stephen Faig: Excellent, and Splunk's become a popular tool for a number of different things related to unlocking the power of machine data, but you're going to be talking about building a database monitoring tool.
Chuck Ezell: Yeah. We're going to actually look at it from a different perspective, not just looking at machine data, but really looking at how we can extract data from other sources from a database, from a file system, and get that into Splunk. Then begin to correlate things together. Not just looking at the whole network, but really an end to end as each of the parts relate to each other.
Stephen Faig: Understood. What are some of the key advantages of using Splunk for database monitoring?
Chuck Ezell: Well, I think that Splunk is such a great tool in respect to the kind of data that you can put into it and the kind of result you can get out. The data can be really any source, any structure, any format, and it provides the benefit of not just looking at single specific things, but allow you to, again, correlate things across different objects, different system. You can look not only at single silos at a cluster environment, but you can look at all of the clusters together and how they relate to each other.
Stephen Faig: It gives you a holistic approach and viewpoint.
Chuck Ezell: Right, right.
Stephen Faig: Understood. What are some of the other key things you focus on Datavail?
Chuck Ezell: Well, we do a lot of performance tuning. We look at applications to see how well they're performing. Assessments. Again, end to end reviews of a database environment. Looking even down to the block level of the data to see how healthy it is. Even the DBTA summit here, whether we're talking about Hadoop, big data, relational data, ROAP systems, data warehouse stuff, it's really all data. How is it structured? How healthy is it? A lot of our time at Datavail is spent looking at things like that for our customers.
Stephen Faig: Do you see the demands of database administrators and their roles changing and evolving as new types of data sources are brought into the enterprise?
Chuck Ezell: Yeah, we do because the roles change as the need for data and need for understanding why we're collecting data we're collecting, how to manage that data. With every new platform, there are different ways to tune the data, to manage the data, and with DBAs today of having to deal with so many databases already in the environment, we've moved past the reality of having one massive database and now we have these small databases. They're different types, different platforms, they do different things, and there's a lot of data that moves between them. A lot of moving parts, a lot of things to look at. There's constantly issues and things to resolve.
Stephen Faig: One size doesn't fit all and the future is essentially hybrid in that regard.
Chuck Ezell: Absolutely.
Stephen Faig: You're going to be presenting on a webcast with us next Thursday on ETL tuning for BI. Maybe you could just talk a little bit about what you're going to be covering during that webcast.
Chuck Ezell: Yeah, absolutely. We're going to do a quick high-level overview of what an ETL is, maybe the elements that are involved, and how to tune that. Opportunities where there might be potential bottlenecks in your ETL, things to look at, and then some approaches you might can apply to remediate those bottlenecks, speed things up. Whether that's an ETL or an ELT, looking at the different sources, the places where you're staging and transforming that data, and then the targets where you're writing it.
Stephen Faig: What types of professionals should attend? Who do you think would get a lot of value out of the discussion?
Chuck Ezell: Well, I think DBAs who manage ETLs or ELTs. I think managers who want to understand really what an ETL is. Again, it's from a high level, so we're not going to drill down deep into specific tuning of the sequel itself, but we're going to talk about concepts and ideas that can be applied. I think DBAs, DBA managers, I think they would find a lot of benefit from it.
Stephen Faig: Understood. As you look ahead, over the next year, what do you think some of the more exciting things going on in the marketplace are, as far as trends that really have your interest?
Chuck Ezell: Well, there's a lot of ... Again, we've already mentioned big data, and we've already mentioned the growth and proliferation of smaller databases and environments and the need for those databases to be managed. I've seen a growth of performance tools, database monitoring tools. I've seen a growth of need for people to be able to understand what's going on in their systems. Each on of those systems being different and unique, it provides and interesting landscape for companies that provide these products where they're each uniquely different. Each of the database platforms are uniquely different so that the tools have different approaches and different needs where they're providing that solution. I think that's an interesting place of growth. I think the need for DBAs to constantly stay up on the latest newest trends, I think that's a great need.
Resources like this where DBAs can come and be involved and get some questions answered, a lot of people are talking about Hadoop. A lot of people are talking about big data. We service a lot of customers, big and small, not a lot of them are actually doing big data, but there's a lot of them that are talking about it. Everybody wants to do it, so I think a place like DBTA Summit is a great place for them to come learn a little bit about, "How can I implement something like this in my company? How does it apply to what we're doing?" There are companies that are using these tools, and there are a lot of companies that want to use these tools. Where does it fit in? Answering questions like that I think is a great need.
Stephen Faig: Absolutely. Thank you, Chuck. That webcast is May 21st, Thursday, at 2:00 pm. You can go to Datavail website or DBTA.com for more information.