An introduction to the collection of the best cloud databases
A cloud database is an independent database that is built, deployed, and accessed through a cloud environment. Cloud databases have all the features of a traditional database, plus the flexibility of cloud computing.
What are the best cloud databases? In this article, you’ll learn about the benefits of using a cloud database and learn about some of the database solutions available.
Why use a cloud database?
Cloud databases offer a number of advantages over using traditional on-premises databases.
Some of the key benefits of cloud databases are:
- Rapid deployment. Cloud databases are perfect when you need a database urgently, as they can be up and running in minutes. Cloud databases eliminate the need to purchase and install hardware and set up a network.
- Accessibility. Users can quickly access cloud databases remotely through the provider’s API or web interface.
- Scalability. You can scale your cloud database storage capacity and meet requirements without disruption. Cloud database scalability is seamless due to DBaaS implementations, which is a major benefit for growing businesses with limited resources.
- Disaster recovery. Data backups are performed on a cloud database on a regular basis and saved on a remote server. These backups enable businesses to stay online in the event of natural disasters, equipment failures, and more.
- Reduce hardware costs. The cloud database service provider provides the infrastructure and performs database maintenance. As a result, companies invest less in hardware and have fewer IT engineers for database maintenance.
- Good value for money. Many DBaaS solutions come in multiple configurations, allowing companies to pay only for what they use and shut down services when they don’t need them. Cloud databases also don’t require operational costs or expensive upgrades, saving money.
- The latest technology. Cloud database providers upgrade their infrastructure and use new technologies to stay updated. Since companies don’t have to allocate money for new technologies or employee training, they can save a lot of money.
- Safety. Most cloud database providers encrypt data and invest in the best cloud security solutions to keep databases secure. While there is no such thing as an unbreakable security system, it is a secure way to protect your data. Because cloud database providers use automation to implement security best practices, there’s less room for human error than with on-premises databases.
Which cloud database is best? Cloud databases provide access through different models – virtual machine images managed like traditional databases or a provider’s database-as-a-service (DBaaS). Read our article to learn more about Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS).
A collection of the 12 best cloud databases
This section lists some of the popular cloud database solutions, and here is a ranking of the best:
Microsoft Azure
What are the best cloud databases? Microsoft Azure Cloud Database is one of the most popular and widely used cloud platforms worldwide. It provides computing, networking, database, analytics, artificial intelligence, and IoT services.
Microsoft’s public cloud computing platform offers a variety of solutions, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).
Read our article to learn the difference between IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.
Microsoft Azure offers a wide range of software solutions that allow users to create a vast ecosystem with the same foundation to easily solve any problem.
The downside is that Azure requires professional management and maintenance, including patching and server monitoring.
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Which cloud database is best? AWS is one of the market leaders when it comes to DBaaS. Amazon offers a variety of data management and integration services. Some of the AWS database solutions are:
- Amazon RDS. Amazon Setup is running on an Oracle, SQL, or MySQL server instance.
- Amazon Simple Database. SimpleDB is designed for smaller workloads and is primarily a schemaless database.
- Amazon DynamoDB. DynamoDB is a NoSQL database that automatically replicates workloads across three Availability Zones.
The downside is that scaling and patching operations require downtime.
Oracle
Best Cloud Database Rankings: Oracle offers enterprise-grade cloud database technology to its users. Database solutions use machine learning to automate database management to ensure high performance, reliability, and security.
Oracle Cloud Database covers hyperscale big data and streaming workloads, including OLTP, Data Warehouse, Spark, Text Search, Image Analytics, and Data Catalog.
The different solutions offered are Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Data as a Service (DaaS).
The downside is the lack of integration with other cloud solutions.
Google Cloud GCP
Best Cloud Database Collection: Google Cloud Platform (GCP) offers a variety of services that use the same hardware and infrastructure as other Google products. GCP’s offerings include a wide range of managed services such as cloud computing, storage, networking, big data, machine learning, IoT, cloud management, and more.
GCP offers IaaS, PaaS, and serverless computing environments.
One of the products in Google Cloud Platform is Cloud Datastore, a database storage solution for NoSQL non-relational storage.
Other Google Cloud products include Cloud SQL for MySQL fully relational storage and Google’s native Cloud Bigtable database.
The downsides are the lack of hosting services and high prices, including expensive support fees.
IBM Db2 on Cloud
IBM Db2 on Cloud is a fully managed SQL database with a 99.99% uptime SLA, independent storage and compute scaling via UI and API, multiple disaster recovery options, data encryption, and other features.
IBM’s relational database provides advanced data management and analytics capabilities for transactional and warehousing workloads. The database offers high performance, excellent insights, data availability, reliability, and extensive operating system support.
The downside of IBM Db2 is that it has fewer regional options, which can impact performance in some cases.
MongoDB Atlas
What are the best cloud databases? MongoDB Atlas is a cloud database created and managed by the same team that developed MongoDB.
Mongo’s cloud database is a fully managed NoSQL database with flexibility, scalability, sharding, and database management automation. It allows most developers to use a variety of delivery models without the help of a database administrator.
The downside is that MongoDB Atlas is only available for NoSQL, which means that applications that rely on SQL are not an option for that database.
OpenStack
OpenStack is an open-source, highly customizable, scalable cloud database with a simple architecture and easy deployment. The database is developed by the community and is based on development milestones with a release cycle of approximately six months.
Relational and non-relational database engines are supported, and cloud users and DBAs can manage multiple database instances.
The downside is that OpenStack requires specialized engineering skills to handle numerous configuration options and troubleshoot any potential issues.
DataStax Astra
Which cloud database is best? DataStax Astra is a fully managed, scalable NoSQL cloud database based on Apache Cassandra as a platform that offers native, hybrid, and multi-cloud services.
Learn the difference between hybrid and multicloud in our comparison article.
DataStax’s database solutions are scalable, have data encryption and security, and allow for deployment on AWS, GCP, and Azure.
The downside is that DataStax Astra only supports single-region deployments.
Rackspace
Rackspace offers scalable, fully managed, or managed cloud databases featuring high performance and an OpenStack platform-based storage area network (SAN).
Rackspace provides easy access to your cloud databases via a cloud dashboard, CLI, or API, and provides regular backups of all your cloud databases.
Redundant storage and synchronous data replication ensure data protection in the event of a disaster or hardware failure.
The downside is that the number of data centers is less than that of competitors.
Redis Enterprise Cloud
Best Cloud Database Collection: Redis Enterprise Cloud provides a NoSQL cloud database solution with 5 9s availability (99.999%), excellent memory performance, and auto-scaling. Redis has a global distribution across regional, cloud, or hybrid environments while maintaining sub-millisecond access times.
The provider performs regular data backups and provides automated cluster recovery to ensure data security and cloud disaster recovery.
The downside is that the user interface is not very user-friendly and requires a high level of database management expertise.
EDB Postgres Premium Server
Best Cloud Database Rankings: The EnterpriseDB cloud database solution focuses on PostgreSQL, but it can also be used for Oracle Database applications, making it easy to migrate from Oracle.
EnterpriseDB provides remote database management services, including monitoring, managing, and maintaining Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL and Microsoft Azure Database for PostgreSQL. The provider also offers Cloud DBA services for customers who need expert support from cloud-hosted Postgres.
These services include scheduled backups and binary replication to protect your data.
The downside is that backup and recovery tools are not as good as Oracle’s.
SAP HANA Cloud
What are the best cloud databases? SAP HANA Cloud is a fully managed, scalable, in-memory cloud database-as-a-service (DBaaS) solution. Databases can be deployed in the cloud or in a hybrid environment.
The database solution provides high processing performance due to multi-model hybrid transactions. Users receive regular software patches and are automatically backed up without worrying about the software that needs to be installed.
The downside is that SAP HANA Cloud requires experienced database engineers, and the necessary cloud training is expensive.
How to choose? Which cloud database is best?
Choose a cloud database model based on the type of business you have and the features that are critical to your business.
However, there are a few key features to look for when choosing a cloud database:
- Manifestation. A database with online and independent scalability ensures that your company’s workloads and needs are always met. Uninterrupted data availability during expansion is an important factor when changes are required.
- Automated services. Automated services and online performance optimization are necessary features to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Auto-indexing is one such service that provides fast data retrieval by automating the maintenance and use of indexes.
- Safety. When choosing a cloud database, data encryption and automatic security updates are a must.
- Compatibility. The database should have extensive compatibility with third-party applications to ensure that everything is working properly.
- Hardware isolation. For business-critical applications, we recommend a dedicated cloud infrastructure with hardware isolated from other tenants.
- Backup. Cloud database providers should regularly back up stored data in multiple geographically dispersed locations to prevent data loss in the event of a disaster.
Summary of the best cloud database collections
Now you know what a cloud database is and its main features. You’re also familiar with popular cloud database solutions on the market, and you can choose the one that suits your needs.
Note that the database list is not exhaustive, and there are many other solutions on the market.
