VMware Tanzu® by Broadcom has introduced the General Availability of the VMware Tanzu Data Hub, a self-managed Database as a Service (DBaaS) Platform, providing enterprises a way to host their internal DBaaS offering for internal business users. Many enterprises today have a mix of public cloud, private cloud, and on-premise infrastructure, and although there are many mature cloud-based DBaaS offerings that exist, private cloud, on-premises, and multi-cloud DBaaS offerings have been lacking until now.
Database as a Service Platform
A DBaaS Platform is a computing model that offers users access to fully managed database services without requiring them to install, maintain, or manage the underlying hardware infrastructure, software infrastructure, or basic database administration tasks. DBaaS platforms are designed to handle various types of databases, including relational databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and NoSQL data services like Redis and RabbitMQ.
The key features of a DBaaS platform include on-demand access, where users can provision and access database resources as needed without the constraints of physical hardware limitations. These platforms are managed services, meaning the provider is responsible for tasks such as database provisioning, support for multiple versions, configuration, security management, backup & recovery, software updates, high availability, disaster recovery, audit & log management, along with performance monitoring.
Overall, DBaaS platforms simplify database management for businesses and developers, enabling them to focus on application development, data analysis, and innovation while reducing the operational overhead associated with maintaining database infrastructure.
Avoiding the DIY Database as a Service Platform
Many enterprises start out trying to build their own DBaaS solution on-premise due to lack of available options, but soon realize the costs and complexities of this task. Avoiding partial solutions and long development cycles is key to a successful deployment, and therefore obtaining a vendor-provided solution is always preferred over Do It Yourself(DIY) DBaaS solutions in the Enterprise.
Single Control Plane Multiple Data Planes
The Tanzu Data Hub architecture is based on the concept of control planes and data planes. The control plane is where the meta-data and application logic for the DBaaS solutions run. The data planes are where the actual instances of the database services run.
In the Tanzu Data Hub, the control plane is deployed as a simple, off-the-shelf Kubernetes application into the user's Kubernetes deployment of choice, either on-premise or in their cloud of choice.
Administrators then log in to the control plane's graphical interface and configure the data planes. The data planes are Kubernetes clusters with their own dedicated and isolated network, storage, and compute infrastructure, which can be on-premise or in the cloud.
Key to this architecture is the concept that a single control plane can manage any number of data planes in any number of data centers, providing a single control center for all the database workloads. And the Data planes can manage data workloads in heterogeneous architectures
Roles and Responsibilities
The Tanzu Data Hub integrates into enterprise security systems to inherit authentication, authorization, and key management. Users can be administrators or business users. Administrators are responsible for setting up the data planes and the database services that will be available to business users.
Business users are empowered to provision database services in the data centers they were allocated and for the database services they were allocated by the administrators.
Both business users and administrators can take and schedule backups and trigger restores.
Customizing Plans for the Business
In any given enterprise environment, the exact plans and recipes of data services can be customized. Customizable features include:
- The database technologies being supported (MySQL, PostgreSQL, RabbitMQ, Redis),
- Amount of CPU, Memory, and Disk needed to allocate to a database instance
- High availability, redundancy, and mirroring policies in the same or across data centers.
- Data center and data planes that can be used.
- Permissions and level of access
- Grouping by Criticality or Line of Business. Each database instance can be tagged accordingly to facilitate operations at a later date.
Administrators of the TDH will be able to configure and customize the plans available within the business to different groups of users.
In addition, the SREs can select the set of tools that better suit the company’s policy to manage the service: Terraform, REST APIs, Kubernetes CLI are all available for management of the platform.
Conclusion
Having a professionally crafted Database as a Service (DBaaS) platform like Tanzu Data Hub is essential for both current and future enterprises. It ensures cost-effective, reliable, and efficient management of data and computing resources. Tanzu Data Hub is precisely such a platform and is readily accessible for enterprises to leverage.
