Top 5 Cloud Databases of 2023

Saranya

Jun, 2021

There is increased adoption of cloud-based database management systems today. This move is triggered more due to digital transformation shifts accelerated by remote work and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

What are cloud databases, and why are they becoming popular?

Cloud databases are databases that are built, deployed, and accessed through a cloud environment — private, public, or hybrid cloud. Organizations can build, and run scalable new applications in a modern dynamic cloud environment, while they have the choice to move their existing databases to the cloud. Users have the option to run cloud databases independently on the cloud with either virtual-machine images or by purchasing access to database services from cloud database service providers.

According to Gartner, “By 2022, 75% of all databases will be deployed or migrated to a cloud platform, with only 5% ever considered for repatriation to on-premises. This trend will largely be due to databases used for analytics, and the SaaS model.” The five most in-demand and beneficial cloud database vendors: Microsoft Azure SQL Database, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Oracle autonomous database (ATP), IBM DB2 for Cloud, and Google Cloud Spanner.

Azure SQL Database

Create a read-only user in Azure SQL – Vincent – Technologist

Microsoft’s Azure SQL Database offers many other value-added features in addition to managed Database-as-a-Service. Users can access SQL databases on Microsoft cloud or on hosted servers on other virtual machines.

Azure SQL can improve business databases by providing easy and flexible options to migrate your existing applications in the cloud or build new ones. Built on the SQL server engine available on-premises, you gain consistent experience across your portfolio. For organizations that are already using Microsoft SQL Server, Azure is the most preferred cloud database, as they can easily migrate to the cloud.

Key Features:

Fully managed SQL database that automates provisioning, updates, and backups so you can work on your application development.
The Hyperscale service tier in Azure SQL Database ensures 99.99% availability, even in infrastructure failures, almost instantaneous backup, and fast database restore.
Offers flexible and responsive serverless compute, i.e., it automatically scales compute based on workload demand and bills.
Offers Advanced Threat Protection against unwanted and harmful attempts to access the databases.
Offers migration of the on-premises Microsoft SQL databases to Azure SQL database in an effortless way.
Built-in AI to continuously monitor queries executed on a database, and automatically improve their performance.

Amazon (AWS) Aurora

Amazon offers a number of cloud database services that includes NoSQL as well as relational databases. Amazon Aurora is a massively scalable, MySQL and PostgreSQL-compatible relational database service re-imagined for the cloud. All your code, tools and applications that you use with your existing MySQL and PostgreSQL databases can be run seamlessly without requiring changes to most of your existing applications.

Key features:

Delivers high-performance with self-healing auto scalability of up to 128TB per database.
Offers greater than 99.99% availability spanning multiple AWS regions to enable quick disaster recovery.
Provides multiple levels of security - encryption at rest using AWS Key Management Service (KMS), network isolation using Amazon VPC, and encryption of data in transit using SSL.
Fully managed, Aurora launches a DB Instance and connects your application within minutes without additional configuration.
Offers machine learning capabilities directly from the database. You can add ML-based predictions to your applications into your data layer, eliminating costly replication.

Oracle autonomous database (ATP)

Oracle ATP, a self-driving, self-securing, self-repairing database service, is built for transactional workloads. One of the key features is that it can instantly scale to meet demands of mission-critical transactions and mixed workload applications. It helps automate the provisioning, configuring, tuning, scaling, patching, encrypting, and repairing of databases.

Gartner ranks Oracle Autonomous Transaction Processing #1 for critical capabilities in the 2020 Gartner Critical Capabilities for Cloud Database Management Systems.

Key features:

Prevents application outages, automates database tuning, and improves security across the entire database application with self-driving Autonomous Database technology.
Provides a high-performing database with features such as — auto-provisioning, auto-indexing, auto-backup, auto-repair, and auto-failover.
Offers support for both relational and non relational data models, simplifying application development.
Offers end-to-end data protection and security.
Provides automatic encryption for the databases and for backups.
Patches and upgrades databases for security vulnerabilities with zero downtime, even when patching occurs.
Delivers high performance and availability above 99.95%.

IBM DB2 for cloud

IBM Db2 on Cloud is a fully-managed SQL cloud relational database that offers advanced data management and analytics capabilities, making data available anywhere for deeper insights. Supported across Linux, Unix, and Windows, IBM DB2 offers a next-generation, hybrid multi-cloud platform, advanced data and AI capabilities, and deep enterprise expertise across 20 industries. Db2 on Cloud can be deployed on IBM Cloud and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Key features include:

Provides a 99.99% uptime, Service-Level Agreement (SLA), seamless switchover, and regular updates that are managed by using automatic client reroute (ACR) and portable IPs.
Offers seamless data protection by encrypting data and curtailing usage only to clients with proper user authentication for platform services and resource access control.
Delivers high-performance insights, data availability, reliability, and broad operating system support.
Enables easier migration of application code to and from IBM DB2 hosted due to its compatibility with Oracle.
Provides independent scaling of RAM, storage, and compute cores using dynamic sliders.

Google Cloud spanner

Google Cloud Spanner is a fully managed, clustered relational database system that offers the scalability of a NoSQL database while maintaining the SQL capability, ACID transactions, and SQL semantics. It offers the internal Google Spanner service used by AdWords, Google Play, and about 5,000 other Google services and databases.

Key features:

Optimizes performance by automatically sharding the data depending on load and size, which makes it easy to scale your database.
Highly reliable with 99.999% availability for multi-regional instances.
An ACID-compliant database that automatically handles replicas, and placement of data using automatic multi-site replication and failover.
Fully managed for easy deployment of any size database. Both synchronous replication and maintenance are automatic and built-in.
Easy and fast online schema changes with no downtime.
Built on Google’s dedicated network, it provides low latency, security, and reliability for serving users globally.

Conclusion

Cloud databases are extremely popular, as it enables organizations to host databases without any IT complexities and operational costs. Easy to access through a web interface or API, there is no hassle of licensing, maintenance, resource allocation, and installation.

Although we have listed 5 popular cloud databases for 2021, there are many others when it comes to open-source and free databases. Therefore, it is important to select the best cloud database depending on the industry-specific requirements.

Still wondering how to choose the right DB for your business? Schedule a free consultation now with GeoPITS.

Further reading

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