Bet on Success: How to avoid costly downtime and keep Informix online all the time

This level of demand requires gaming and gambling companies to handle thousands of transactions - during the US Superbowl, an average of 14,750 bets were placed per second. 

For such high-pressure and high-volume environments, organisations need to rely on specialised technology such as the IBM Informix database to handle the volume of data processing this requires. Capable of scale and optimised for the most demanding data workloads, Informix maintains always-on transactions. As a business-critical system, Informix cannot afford any downtime as catastrophic consequences are felt within seconds and minutes, not hours:

• Lost revenue Bets can only be placed for a moment in time. If technology even momentarily delays a bet being placed, that revenue potential is lost forever. Take the example of a real-life major sporting event. At the event’s peak, 101,000 bets were placed per minute at an average ‘Win and Each Way’ stake of £5.42. That means a single minute of downtime would have resulted in £547,420 in lost revenue alone. Whilst sales in other industries can be deferred, in the world of gaming it cannot – the opportunity is irretrievable.

• Reputational damage Downtime can be extremely frustrating and upsetting for end users. Imagine someone who is trying to place a last minute, 1-in-100 shot bet only to be thwarted by a technical hiccup at the final moment. In cases like these, the negative impact is longer-lasting. Customers are more likely to go elsewhere to place their bets and will no doubt voice their dissatisfaction to others. According to a survey by the Ponemon Institute, reputational damage can account for 40% of all downtime costs. The damage can extend beyond those that are trying to place the bets as due to system dependencies, other applications that rely on the Informix database such as financial systems may also experience downtime and prevent payouts, eroding trust.

The problem: Informix is a niche area

Even if you are fortunate enough to have an in-house Informix database team, it’s likely to be small, which means any employee sickness or holiday will have a big impact. Also, as an older technology, Informix users are starting to suffer the same issues as those using SAP in terms of skills. As IT professionals hit retirement age, their skills in these ageing technologies are leaving the market with them, and with it not being a cloud native technology, these skills are not being replaced. 

The ‘war on talent’ is nothing new. However, when there are over 200,000 vacant data roles, and UK universities are only able to produce 10,000 data graduates per year, hiring a specialist, like an Informix Database Admin, becomes virtually impossible. This provides a stark contrast between the supply and demand. With a bottlenecked talent pipeline for the whole industry combined with the niche nature of Informix, further combined with a now retiring workforce, businesses reliant on Informix are aware of the reality – we need to build redundancy and reduce risk.

How do you futureproof your business-critical systems and keep them online?

With Informix talent being in short supply, building redundancy within your team by working with a Managed Service Provider with these key skills is a strong option. 

As an IBM Platinum partner, our team has been supporting Informix for over 20 years. Furthermore, we are acutely aware that this skill set is becoming harder to acquire, which is why we consciously upskill the next generation of support engineers to ensure our clients remain resilient. 

Have confidence in your IT environment and know that if there’s an issue with Informix in the future, you’ll stay online. Also ensure the daily stress of running of your Informix environments are taken care of with database management and support for the OS running on top of Informix, as well as any licensing with ‘Database-as-a-Service (DbaaS)’ offering included. 

By appointing Claranet as your MSP and signing up to DbaaS, you gain immediate access to our in-house Informix experts, who take over the running and management of your database. At all times, your estate is managed by professional Database Administrators (DBAs) who perform specific activities that underpin your applications and data – freeing you to focus on your core business activities where you add the most value. 

Unlike similar database management offerings, our service takes care of everything ‘behind the scenes’, meaning you don’t even need to think about it. The support covers everything from Informix to MSSQL, MySQL and Postgres. Furthermore, because we support different database technologies, we remain agnostic in our approach to ensure we deliver a consistent experience across all database types. 

Get your relational database management system (RDBMS) ‘as a service’ in a single package, allowing you to reap the benefits of scalable, reliable and resilient infrastructure in the most cost-effective way. 

Find out more about Database-as-a-service with our comprehensive overview, or speak to one of our data experts directly.