Cloud database

A cloud database is a database that typically runs on a cloud computing platform, access to it is provided as a service.

Database services take care of scalability and high availability of the database. Database services make the underlying software-stack transparent to the user.

There are two primary methods to run a database in a cloud:

The design and development of typical systems utilize data management and relational databases as their key building blocks. Advanced queries expressed in SQL work well with the strict relationships that are imposed on information by relational databases. However, relational database technology was not initially designed or developed for use over distributed systems. This issue has been addressed with the addition of clustering enhancements to the relational databases, although some basic tasks require complex and expensive protocols, such as with data synchronization.

Modern relational databases have shown poor performance on data-intensive systems, therefore, the idea of NoSQL has been utilized within database management systems for cloud based systems. Within NoSQL implemented storage, there are no requirements for fixed table schemas, and the use of join operations is avoided. "The NoSQL databases have proven to provide efficient horizontal scalability, good performance, and ease of assembly into cloud applications."

It is also important to differentiate between cloud databases which are relational as opposed to non-relational or NoSQL:

The following table lists notable database vendors with a cloud database offering, classified by their deployment model – machine image vs. database as a service – and data model, SQL vs. NoSQL.

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