As a database developer or DBA, you’ve lacked the proper tools to help you keep pace with the rest of your organization. You’ve watched your app-developing colleagues across the hall use agile to whiz through product releases and embrace DevOps to automate their deployment pipelines.

With all that automation, they can find the time to play Pokémon Go and watch Twitch at fun o’clock, while you bust your chops on manual processes.

“We have it much harder than they do,” you and your fellow DBAs grumble. “We don’t have the luxury of tweaking modules and then backing them out of production later if things go badly. We have to do things manually and slowly to protect the database. If we didn’t have to keep the database out of harm’s way, we could automate all our processes and take life easy.”

You don’t have to daydream about bringing agile and DevOps to database development anymore.

We’ve released a new white paper called DevOps Comes to Database Developers and DBAs — It’s About Time. I wrote it with Robert Reeves, the CTO of Datical, to examine all the reasons database development goes slowly compared with app development (spoiler alert: it’s about automation tools).

Robert and I re-examine the obstacles to agile and DevOps. Database development tools from Toad and Datical are designed to track discrete changes and automate testing, code reviews, staging and deployment. The combination is your ticket out of manual processes and into smooth, automated pipelines.

Here are four good reasons to bring agile and DevOps to your database development:

1. You won’t look back. Once you’ve decided to introduce automation to database development, you’ll see how you can release updates faster and keep costs low without increasing risk. Why would anybody turn back from that?
2. The transition goes quickly. You can be ready to separate yourself from manual testing, code reviews, staging and deployment as soon as you’ve implemented Toad and Datical.
3. Adopting agile and DevOps is a low-impact process. Your exit from doing things the old, manual way won’t involve tragedy and drama. For one thing, you and your fellow DBAs can perform your work more smoothly and free up more time. For another, while speed is usually the enemy of quality and you usually have to sacrifice one for the other, you can have both when you’re armed with the right tools. People don’t lose jobs because of agile and DevOps; they do those jobs better.
4. You won’t be caught without a plan. What comes next when you bring automation to database development? You remove one of the main bottlenecks that keep you from realizing the promise of agile and DevOps on an organization-wide scale. If you have to plan for anything, it’s for what to do with the time and effort that automation is going to save you.

Make it easy on yourself. Read our new white paper.

Have a look at our paper, DevOps Comes to Database Developers and DBAs — It’s About Time, to find out how you can automate your database development and free up more time.

You don’t have to choose among speed, quality and risk anymore.