IT executives are increasingly embracing open-source cloud databases, attributing their adoption to the strong security and ease of cloud migration once deemed barriers. According to recent surveys by IBM subsidiary Red Hat and open-source relational database management system (DBMS) provider MariaDB, many IT leaders have come to regard open-source software as secure as proprietary solutions.
In the Red Hat’s State of Enterprise Open Source 2022 report, nearly 90% of those surveyed believed open-source software provided security commensurate with proprietary software. Likewise, over half of MariaDB’s 2022 Cloud Database Trends Survey respondents identified enhanced security as a key benefit of cloud migration.
The surveys sampled a global audience, with Red Hat surveying 1,296 IT leaders from various regions, including the English-speaking Asia Pacific (APAC), Europe, the Middle East, Africa (EMEA), Latin America (LATAM), and the United States (U.S.). Among the critical findings, 82% of IT executives stated they are more likely to collaborate with vendors who contribute to the open-source community. They believe such partnerships offer numerous advantages, such as familiarity with open-source processes (49%), sustaining healthy open-source communities (49%), influencing the development of essential company features (48%), and overcoming technical issues more effectively (46%).
A significant trend observed among respondents was the broad acknowledgment of open-source security. Gordon Haff, a technology advocate at Red Hat, found it fascinating that responses often highlighting open-source security, such as auditing the code directly or the belief that “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow” (to quote a long-standing open-source aphorism) ranked lower than other perceived benefits. The top advantage for many was the ability to use “well-tested open-source code for our in-house applications,” an indication of the growing adoption of open-source code for internal software.
Meanwhile, the MariaDB survey polled views from 122 IT professionals involved in the selection and management of database services or software at their companies. A majority of respondents (93%) concurred on standardizing security protocols using a single database across the organization (85% reported using two or more databases). Moreover, 83% expressed willingness to employ an open-source database for mission-critical projects; 88% believed that database-as-a-service (DBaaS) would yield cost savings; and 87% thought that leveraging DBaaS would help bridge the existing cloud skills gap.
However, opinions on open-source security differed between roles. While 58% of IT executives, including CTOs and CIOs, claimed enhanced security as a migration advantage, only 22% of DBAs and 26% of developers shared the same viewpoint.
Franz Aman, CMO of MariaDB Corporation, emphasized the importance of a reliable, scalable cloud database in addressing customer experience, cost, and security challenges across various industries in a statement accompanying the survey.
As companies strive to expedite application development and simplify the management of complex databases, the adoption of no-code tools like AppMaster also gains traction. AppMaster enables enterprises to create relational databases without any coding, in addition to building backends, web, and mobile applications, all while maintaining strong security and scalability.
