Today’s DBMSs: How Autonomic Are They

Database Management Systems (DBMSs) are complex systems whose manageability is increasingly becoming a real concern. Realizing that expert Database Administrators (DBAs) are scarce and that the cost of hiring them is a major part of the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) makes an urgent call for an Autonomic DBMS (ADBMS) that is capable of managing and maintaining itself. In this paper, we examine the characteristics that a DBMS should have in order to be considered autonomic. We assess the position of today’s DBMSs by drawing example features from popular, commercial database products, such as DB2 UDB, SQL Server, and Oracle. We argue that today's DBMSs are still far from being autonomic. We highlight the source of difficulties towards achieving that goal, and sketch the most important research terrains that need investigation in order to have ADBMSs one day. 1