Proprietary Databases Almost Twice as Likely to Suffer Security Breaches as Open Source Databases

SANTA CRUZ, CA, October 18, 2005 - Open source database deployments are up more than 20% in the last six months, according to Evans Data’s Fall 2005 Database Development Survey. MySQL use, for example, has increased by more than 25% in six months and is approaching a majority in the database space, with 44% of developers using the open source database.

Database security is an important facet of database development, Evans Data found that proprietary database servers are almost twice as likely to have suffered a security breach in the last year compared to open source database servers. The most likely security breach for a proprietary database was a network intrusion and, for open source databases, the most likely breach was a user authentication breach.

"We continue to see the maturation of open source databases reflected by the continually increasing levels of adoption," said John Andrews, Evans Data's President. "In a number of our ratings categories, we’re seeing open source databases meeting or exceeding proprietary databases."

Other findings from the October 2005 survey of more than 400 database developers:

• More than 60% of database developers say their company can recover mission-critical data systems in under an hour. One in five said access to the data could be restored in under 5 minutes. However, 8% said it would be more than 12 hours to restore mission-critical data.
• Three in four database developers have mobilization plans with 32% either currently deploying or expecting to deploy mobile database applications within the next six months.
• Almost 70% of database developers indicate plans to deploy embedded databases. Twenty-four percent are currently deploying embedded databases.

Evans Data Corporation provides regularly updated IT industry market intelligence based on in-depth surveys of the global developer population. Evans' syndicated research includes surveys focused on developers in a wide variety of subjects.

Copyright 2007 Evans Data Corporation. All other company names, products and services mentioned in this document are the trademarks and property of their respective owners.

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