Calling relational database nerds: Please share your thoughts on info storage in today's hybrid world

Reader survey Ever since Larry Ellison stepped off his houseboat in the late 1970s, relational databases have underpinned a huge amount of what made business IT a genuine force for good.

As time moved on, though, those databases became synonymous with unnecessary complication and legacy technology, and are a prime source of delay in digital transformation. And we can’t be having that.

There are now loads of other ways to manage and store data. If you want to scoop everything out of the Internet of Things, run it through a third-party cloud provider, and make it instantly available to everyone who’s going to need it, your usual trip down to the IT floor to ask nicely – followed by a month's wait – is archaic.

Meanwhile, NoSQL, Hadoop, in-memory databases, streaming, virtualization, and a bunch of other weird and wonderful edge concepts, are emerging in response to the evolution of data structures and user needs, and that’s only going to tug on the reins of every business as the world becomes ever more data-centric.

So in a world where “business analysts” are a thing of the past and everyone is spinning up “democratised data” in the cloud from their overpriced smart wristwatch, what’s to be done?

Well, you tell us. The Register is running a reader survey to find out. We hope to identify some of the trends, ambitions, and common practices in how you’re responding to the needs of building, running and managing databases in 2020.

From telling us what you’re doing now with relational database systems, to your concerns and goals in scaling, integration, migration, and how others in your organisation are responding to it all, we want to build a compelling picture.

The survey only takes a few minutes, all responses are anonymous and with privacy assured, and you’ll be the first to know our findings the moment we’ve put it all together. Thanks in advance for joining in.

Take our Modernizing Your Database Workloads in a Hybrid World survey right here.