Table 4 The relevant quotations extracted from interviews

Level 1: AI-ready level

 At this level, the developers consider applying AI technologies to improve database performance. The participants most frequently mentioned the terms “consider applying AI technologies” and “optimize” for the first maturity level. “The database developers only establish a preliminary plan for the AI technologies implementation, but it does not apply AI technologies” (PM 1 and PM 2). According to Consultant 5, “at this level, the database has not yet developed intelligence resource management method. Resource management work basically depends on DMA, which is complex and difficult. However, the developers have made some initial plans to apply AI technologies”.

Level 2: AI-usage level

 At the second maturity level, “according to the preliminary plan in the first maturity level, the developers can apply AI technologies to optimize resource management” (PM 2). Furthermore, “the database only considers the optimization of resource management in a separate part, but it does not consider multiple parts of the database in an integrated manner” (Consultant 4).

Level 3: Semi-automatic level

 At this level, the database realizes several intelligent functions in multiple parts of the database with human help. For example, when a database serves multiple tenants on demand, the database can apply AI technologies to complete intelligent resource scheduling. But it needs human assistance to decide whether to operate based on the given data. “At the third level, the database is committed to integrating multiple parts of the database to realize intelligent resource management, further to implement the AI-empowered”(PM 3).

Level 4: Automatic level

 This level is the highest level of the maturity model. For this level, 75% of participants considered that CNDBs realize self-optimizing resource management performance in multiple parts. Also, as outlined by both PM 1 and PM 2, “the database embraces various smart functions, such as intelligent resource allocation among tenants, smart resource scheduling between regions, and automatic memory sharing”. According to Consultant 3, “the cloud resources are fully utilized at the fourth maturity level”.