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Enterprise Cloud & Data, Under Pressure

  • Hyperscaler GTM Playbook
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Category: Storage

Storage is the foundation on which database performance is built. Latency, throughput, and consistency at this layer directly shape how systems behave under load.

While often abstracted away in modern architectures, storage characteristics continue to define the limits of what databases can achieve – especially as workloads become more demanding and less predictable.

The Biggest Gap In The Clouds? High Performance RDBMS

A hurricane representing the performance storm facing high-performance RDBMS workloads that cloud infrastructure was not designed to handle

Hyperscalers have solved cloud infrastructure for most workloads. High-performance RDBMS remains the exception – the gap between cloud promises and database reality is still real.

flashdba Blog, Cloud, Databases, Storage Leave a comment December 13, 2021April 3, 2026 3 Minutes

Cloud Compromises: Constrained and Optimized CPUs

Cloud instance sizing like off-the-rack clothing – constrained CPU options that don't fit the precise performance needs of enterprise databases

Not all cloud vCPUs are equal. This article explains how constrained and optimised CPU configurations affect enterprise database performance in ways the spec sheet doesn’t reveal.

flashdba Blog, Cloud, Databases, Storage Leave a comment August 17, 2021April 3, 2026 3 Minutes

Overprovisioning: The Curse Of The Cloud

Hotel room service illustrating cloud overprovisioning – paying for capacity that exceeds actual database workload requirements

On-premises databases were overprovisioned for performance. Cloud databases are overprovisioned for a different reason: unpredictable pricing. This article explains the real cost.

flashdba Blog, Cloud, Databases, Storage Leave a comment August 2, 2021April 3, 2026 3 Minutes

The Public Cloud: The Hotel For Your Applications

A hotel sign illustrating the public cloud as shared infrastructure – elastic capacity available on demand but without the control of dedicated environments

The public cloud is like a hotel – flexible and convenient but shared infrastructure. This article explains what that model really means for enterprise databases.

flashdba Blog, Cloud, Databases, Storage Leave a comment October 22, 2020April 3, 2026 4 Minutes

Don’t Call It A Comeback

flashdba returns from retirement to ask the question nobody in the cloud conversation was asking: when 75% of databases move to the cloud, what actually happens to performance?

flashdba Blog, Cloud, Databases, Storage 3 Comments September 18, 2020April 3, 2026 2 Minutes

The Final Post: Hardware Is Dead

flashdba football jersey, number 11

Seven years in the all-flash storage industry ends with one conclusion: hardware has lost the battle. The real competition now is in software, cloud and the economics of abstraction.

flashdba Blog, Storage, Storage for DBAs 6 Comments June 27, 2019June 19, 2026 6 Minutes

Flash Debrief: The End (part 1)

Abandoned railway tracks ending at a shoreline at dusk, a rusted dead-end leading into still water

A retrospective on seven years in the All-Flash storage industry – from Violin Memory’s $2bn valuation to Chapter 11, through acquisitions and consolidation, to the conclusion that the flash wars had only one winner: cloud.

flashdba Blog, Storage, Storage for DBAs Leave a comment March 28, 2019June 19, 2026 4 Minutes

Oracle ASM and Thin Provisioning – How To Reclaim Space

Thin provisioning lets storage arrays report more capacity than they physically have – but Oracle ASM doesn't automatically return space when data is deleted. Here's how to reclaim it.

flashdba ASM, Blog, Databases, Flash, Storage 2 Comments February 5, 2019June 19, 2026 6 Minutes

All Flash Arrays: Scale Up vs Scale Out (Part 2)

Signpost at a fork in the road representing the choice between scale-up and scale-out storage architectures

Scale-out adds performance by adding controller pairs, but forces unnecessary hardware spend when only capacity is needed. Combining independent scale-up and scale-out is the architecture that makes composable storage possible.

flashdba All Flash Arrays, Blog, Storage, Storage for DBAs Leave a comment November 1, 2017June 19, 2026 4 Minutes

All Flash Arrays: Scale Up vs Scale Out (Part 1)

Buildings of different heights representing the trade-off between scale-up and scale-out storage architecture strategies

Enterprise storage has two independent requirements: capacity and performance. Scale-up-only architectures struggle to address both – hitting metadata and DRAM ceilings before either dimension is adequately satisfied.

flashdba All Flash Arrays, Blog, Storage, Storage for DBAs 2 Comments May 9, 2017June 19, 2026 7 Minutes

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