Five commonly used cloud databases

For SQL Server users, you may already know Windows Azure SQL Database (formerly known as SQL Azure), Microsoft's cloud database. In fact, in addition to SQL Database, there are many relational or non-relational database cloud services. In this article, we will summarize the five most common cloud databases for you. You can choose different services according to your specific situation.

​AmazonAWS

Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) is one of the earliest cloud-based database services, and it is also the first database service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). Based on RDS, you can deploy Oracle, MySQL or SQL Server database instances while using standard storage or Provisional IOPS storage, and it is also optimized for I/O-intensive workloads. RDS also gives you the option of using Amazon Virtual Private Cloud Service to isolate your database instances. In addition, you can also use Amazon CloudWatch Service to view key operating indicators of the instance.

Of course, AWS also has its own cloud database products, including DynamoDB, Redshift and SimpleDB, which are currently provided as public test services. DynamoDB is a NoSQL database service in which all data is stored on solid state drives and replicated to three available sites, making it a fast and highly available system. Redshift is a data warehouse service that uses column storage technology to combine distributed, parallel queries to support data sets ranging from gigabytes to petabytes and beyond. The SimpleDB service provides a non-relational, non-schema data store that can access small character data sets through simple queries.

In addition to the above four database services, AWS also provides Data Pipeline workflow services for migrating and processing data, and the ElastiCache service for maintaining data in cache.

​Google Cloud Platform

Like Amazon, Google provides a variety of data-related services. The first is Cloud SQL, which is a relational database service based on MySQL and can be used as an alternative to SQL Azure. Cloud SQL is fully and tightly integrated with App Engine and other Google services. Cloud SQL also supports synchronous replication to multiple sites. In addition, Google also provides the BigQuery service, which is a real-time big data analysis tool that allows you to perform random queries on billions of record datasets. This service leverages Google's massive computing power to allow you to analyze data from terabyte-scale data sets.

The latest member of Google's product family, Cloud Datastore, is a non-schema, non-relational database service that supports ACID transactions, similar to those in traditional relational database management systems (RDBMS). ACID refers to four properties used to guarantee predictable and secure transactions: atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability. The Cloud Datastore service is currently available in preview and the App Engine service uses the same Datastore storage. Datastore is an interface to BigTable, Google's internal storage system. Datastore data is replicated to multiple data centers and automatically expanded as traffic increases.

​Rackspace Cloud Database

Among the many cloud-based services provided by Rackspace, database services are also included. Gateway services provided by companies such as MongoLab and Cloudant also include Rackspace in their products. In addition, Rackspace provides database management services for MySQL, Oracle and SQL Server. Dedicated database administrators and engineers can design your cloud-based database system and manage the hardware and software while providing full support.

Rackspace now also offers a cloud database service, which is a fully managed MySQL hosting service built on the OpenStack platform. OpenStack is an operating system based on open standards developed by Rackspace and NASA. It can be used to build public and private clouds. Rackspace cloud database also uses SAN storage with built-in data replication and is implemented in a container-based virtualization structure, which performs better than traditional hardware virtualization. With a cloud database, deployment, configuration and patching are all automated.

​ MongoLab

A database service provided by MongoLab is based on the MongoDB database, which is an open source, document-oriented database system that can store data in binary form. Unlike traditional databases, which have fixed schemas, MongoDB schemas can vary from document to document and change as the application evolves. However, MongoDB still provides some features available in a relational database, such as secondary indexes and a complete query language.

MongoLab provides MongoDB as a gateway service, which can be hosted on different cloud platforms, including AWS, Joyent, Rackspace, Windows Azure and Google Cloud Platform. This database service allows you to perform automatic backups so that you can Store on your own network or on a network provided by a cloud storage provider. MongoDB also provides a set of web-based management tools that allow you to perform tasks such as performing general searches, controlling the database, or optimizing queries. In addition, MongoLab continuously monitors the health and performance of your database server.

​Datbase.com

Salesforce.com also provides its own cloud database service. Datbase.com uses the same technology to power the Salesforce customer relationship management system, which handles more than 5 billion transactions per day. Database.com is based on a multi-tenant architecture, so that caches, system directories and query optimizers are all shared.

Although Database.com provides relational database services, its architecture is different from the typical RDBMS. Database.com uses a specially designed model to establish multi-tenant and cloud environments without the need for virtualization, which is common with hosted systems. Additionally, the service uses a single runtime engine to implement all application data from metadata, while keeping the engine, metadata, and tenant data completely independent.

Companies such as Cloudant, Couchbase and Garantia Data also provide cloud database services. Although Amazon and Google are leading the way in diversity, this does not mean that their services are suitable for your enterprise. Rackspace Cloud Database, MongoLab and Database.com are all highly recommended cloud database services.

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