From the pressures of growth, through to challenges in recruiting database skills, we are seeing recurring business issues that are being increasingly and successfully addressed by outsourcing the Data Administrator function. Businesses are seeing the benefits across the board from cost, personnel management and improvements in data insights. In this blog, we dive into some of the common challenges fuelling the growth in Database Administration as a Service or DBAaaS.
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The Burgeoning Data Volume

Whilst you would expect larger businesses to have more data complexity, growing and acquisitive SMBs are also generating, collecting and inheriting an expanding amount of data from diverse sources across the business and beyond. Databases can become out of control and capacity issues result in a reduction in system performance. With different types of data – customer, financial and operational, structured and unstructured – requiring different handling and security measures, data needs effective management, specialist skills and tools to keep it organised whilst building scalability.
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The “Data Rich, Information Poor” Issue
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Even where the data may be organised many businesses still cannot drive comprehensive intelligence from it. The right data needs to be selected, possibly formatted, and connected in order for any reporting to be fully holistic and accurate. All too often we see businesses applying templates and tools to report on data that has not been prepared giving them inaccurate results and jeopardising decision making. Reporting is often cyclical but to maintain business agility data needs to be available on demand. Unmaintained data means that reporting can be delayed if much work is needed to prepare it each time.
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The Regulatory Maze
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With stricter and evolving data privacy regulations like GDPR, ensuring data security and compliance is crucial for SMBs. A Gartner report, “Top Security and Risk Trends” in 2023 stated that 64% of organisations are increasing their security budgets due to compliance requirements. But this often relates to extra technology spend. Having dedicated resources to proactively manage data compliance is often overlooked and can lead to data vulnerability or financial penalties.
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The Skills Gap
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A 2023 Forbes study of 500 UK businesses revealed there is a growing and urgent need for tech expertise. In fact, 93% reported a perceived UK IT skills gap and 42% said that they believed this was due to the “fast pace of technological advancements”. We concur. Whilst in-house database resources may cover the majority of the data requirements, they often do not get the opportunity to hone their skills with new advancements. In addition, certain circumstances reveal the need for specialist skills, however, it is sometimes hard to quickly source and fund resources even on a short-term basis.
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The Resource Gap
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Despite data being a highly prized currency, we often find either no database administrator (DBA) in place, or there is a single DBA. This can sometimes be another IT resource that has moved over or who is covering database management as part of their role but is not particularly skilled. This is a particularly concerning position and a single point of risk. Apart from restricting the ability to effectively scale, if they are out of the business for sickness or leave they take all the internal database knowledge with them. If there is a team in place, we find that project work or critical business requirements can often take priority and basic database management can become neglected.
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The Resource Cost
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So having recognised both a lack of available and skilled database resource, those available in the market are commanding high salaries. Added to the cost of recruiting, this puts many SMBs back in the position of not being able to afford the number of database positions a business requires.
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The 24/7 Dilemma
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Data doesn’t sleep and in a global business world businesses are operating continuously. Business continuity is critical and often problems arise out of hours, where in-house database teams do not provide cover, creating not only a point of risk but high costs for emergency support.

With four of the common challenges caused by the availability and cost of skilled in-house database resources, outsourced DBA support can be a compelling alternative. With flexible contracts, DBA managed services can provide continuous 24/7 support, removing any business risks related to sickness or employee holidays, and access to a range of Microsoft Azure and SQL database experts, whose skills on a full-time basis would be prohibitive.  

This flexible and modern approach to IT resourcing is empowering organisations to thrive in the ever-growing data-driven business landscape.
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Learn more about our Database Administration as a Service.