61% of digital architects report that past technology decisions made completing digital transformation projects more difficult — yet 91% still rely on legacy databases to some extent, according to a new report by Couchbase. While 64% of digital architects are locked into using legacy databases because they have invested heavily in relevant skills, at least 60% have either reduced their use of legacy databases over the past 12 months or plan to over the next 12.

Couchbase conducted a survey to examine how digital transformation priorities have impacted digital architects. The report found that the sudden acceleration of initiatives to digitally transform businesses have put architects under both limelight and tremendous pressure, given that transformation starts with the heavy lift of modernizing data infrastructure and then fixing the application stack above it.

As a result, the pressure on digital architects has more than doubled since the outbreak of COVID-19, with 48% of respondents feeling currently under high or extremely high pressure to deliver digital projects. Creating additional hurdles, 61% said that past technology decisions made completing digital transformation projects more difficult — in particular, cloud infrastructure (48%) and database (43%) decisions. Furthermore, 64% are locked into using legacy databases because they have invested heavily in the relevant skills. Yet, despite these pressures and hurdles, architects are still achieving results, with nearly half (48%) delivering digital projects uninterrupted by the pandemic (a positive sign, given the recent outbreaks of COVID throughout the nation).

The research highlights the problem of over-relying on legacy databases. Even though most organizations believe relational databases do not have major potential to revolutionize digital transformation, 91% still rely on them — underscoring the challenges organizations still face with legacy databases.

Against this backdrop, architects believe the cloud (68%) and big data (59%) have the most potential to revolutionize digital transformation in the future — perhaps because both enable organizations to adapt to an increasingly online and decentralized world. Respondents also reported which approaches provided significant help or were indispensable in meeting their goals, including moving from on-premises databases to the cloud (identified by 65%); the flexibility to quickly change goals when needed (63%); and adopting technology that didn’t require investing in new skills (60%).

Read the full Couchbase report.