Have to agree wtih Chris...
Here's a guy who actually knows what he's talking about.
But here's the thing... I don't know if the question is being framed properly.
When you say 'database consolidation, what do you mean exactly.
Yes, its a strange question, but think about it.
You have databases that are OLTP transaction processing systems of truth. Then you have Data Warehouses (OLAP) that are used to drive analytics.
Then you have Data Lakes which in itself is a Data Warehouse consolidation by removing the silos. (Here the number of DWs goes down, but the storage requirements go up. )
And its not just the CPUs getting better, or storage, but also networking. 40GbE is becoming Cisco's norm. 100GbE is also there...
But at 40GbE you can start to consider data fabric as your storage layer. The issue is cost versus density and performance has to be evaluated on a case by case basis.
The networking also allows for a segregation of COTS and specialty hardware to get the most bang for your buck. You can weave a GPU appliance into your data fabric and then consolidate compute servers using K8s to allow distributed OLTP RDBMs to take better advantage of the hardware. (This is where the network can be a bottleneck. )
What's interesting and a side note... when you look at this... its in *YOUR* Data Center. Not on the cloud. (Although it could be in the Cloud too.)
These advances will spell a down turn in the cloud over the next 5 years. Thats not to say that there won't be a reason for cloud but more of a hybrid approach.
Just some random thought from someone who's been around this for far too long but too broke to retire. ;-)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
