Benefits of a Cloud Database

What is a cloud database?

As the name implies, cloud databases are deployed and accessed in the cloud. While similar in role and functionality to on-premises databases, they come with the added benefits associated with cloud computing, such as flexibility, scalability, and availability. And unlike a traditional setup, there is no need to buy dedicated hardware.

You can choose between relational or NoSQL cloud databases to best fit your company’s goals and data structure. Once set up, cloud databases provide secure, responsive, and easy access from anywhere, with an internet connection via a web UI or APIs.

Beyond the relational vs. NoSQL choice, you’ll have another decision that’s all about control. You can install and run your own self-managed database on a cloud virtual machine or move to a fully managed Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS). The first option is much closer to operating a traditional, on-premises database. It provides more control, but that comes with the responsibility of managing all IT infrastructure maintenance and operations. With the DBaaS approach, a cloud service provider fully hosts and manages the database in the cloud. They provide the software, services, support, and skilled staff necessary to set up, manage, and scale databases.

Cloud database options

There are three types of cloud computing: public, private, and hybrid cloud. When considering migrating your database to the cloud, it’s important to understand them and their differences, so you can find the best fit for your company.

Public

Public cloud is a multi-tenant cloud computing environment. That means several companies share public internet server space and resources that are hosted by a third-party service provider. However, each tenant’s data is kept separate from that belonging to other companies. The cloud provider is responsible for all hardware, software, and maintenance, while ensuring easy access and continuous availability.

Public clouds have several attractive advantages, including seamless scaling to easily meet even unpredicted and sudden changes in workload levels, and cost-effectively only charging customers for the resources they actually use. Fully cloud-based, they also allow companies to stop paying for expensive on-premises hardware and investing in capacity that might never be used.

Private

In direct contrast to public cloud, private cloud is a single-tenant cloud computing environment. All hardware and software resources are reserved for only one customer. Commonly hosted at the customer’s on-premises data center, private clouds can also reside with a cloud provider or a rented, offsite data center.

With private cloud, customers can decide the level of control and infrastructure responsibility they’d like to take on. They can assume complete control or offload partial or full management to a service provider. For companies that have to meet demanding regulatory compliance requirements or have to handle a substantial amount of highly sensitive or private information, that added control can be important.

Hybrid

Hybrid cloud enables customers to integrate public cloud, private cloud, and on-premises infrastructures into one environment, providing orchestration and management across all three. This provides companies with the flexibility to decide which computing model is the best fit for each workload. And they can easily move workloads between the different infrastructure types if the situation changes.

Hybrid multi-cloud provides even more flexibility. It’s hybrid cloud that enables integration of more than one public cloud service, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. Each has strengths and weaknesses, and this allows customers to choose the cloud service with the best functionality for the job at hand.

Cloud database benefits

Cloud databases have a long list of benefits. Some of their key advantages include scalability, cost, agility, risk reduction, and security. Let’s take a look.

Scalability

On-premises capacity planning is a high-stakes and inefficient guessing game. If too much hardware is purchased, the result is unused resources and wasted funds. And, if demand exceeds planned capacity, you might be stuck in a situation difficult to dig out of. Your customers and your bottom line will likely suffer as you go through the long and painful process of procuring and setting up new hardware under duress.   

On the other hand, cloud databases quickly scale up capacity to flawlessly meet even dramatic or sudden surges in demand. They also can scale down as demand slows. This ability to expand or contract to meet fluctuating needs means your user base or application growth will never be limited when you opt to use a cloud database.

Cost

The dynamic scalability that cloud databases provide—where exactly the right amount of storage and services are provisioned and used at any given time—leads to much more efficient and cost-effective database management. That’s because most cloud databases are pay-as-you-go and only charge for the resources that are actually used.

With a traditional, on-premises approach you have to continuously monitor and predict demand. Often that leads to the expansion of your on-site storage capacity with the purchase of expensive servers. You also have to continuously maintain, replace, or upgrade existing hardware and software. These costs are dramatically reduced with the adoption of cloud databases, especially if your company decides to embrace the fully managed, DBaaS option.

Agility

Removing the headaches associated with IT infrastructure management and maintenance, provides you and your team the ability to focus on building new products and improving the experience for your customers. 

And when inspiration strikes or a new opportunity presents itself, a lack of infrastructure resources won’t hold you back. Cloud databases can quickly scale up to whatever level you need to try something new. With the typical, on-premises approach you’d be stuck—constrained by the limited resources already on hand. You might not have the time or funding to expand quickly enough to take advantage of a time-sensitive opportunity.

Cloud databases give you the flexibility to ramp up quickly, so you can move fast. You can spin-up the servers you need in minutes to take advantage of opportunities before they disappear. Work on and launch new product enhancements without an excruciating waiting period for development and testing environments. And pay-as you-go-pricing dramatically lowers the stakes for experimentation and trying new things. With cloud databases, your infrastructure will no longer be a constraint to innovation.

Tapping into a cloud ecosystem can also spur innovation. Cloud service providers are continually updating and improving their offerings. When new features are introduced, you can immediately take advantage of them. They also allow you to easily connect to other potential partners and services that can potentially improve your offering via APIs.

Risk reduction

Moving to a cloud database from an on-premises infrastructure also reduces risk of downtime and data loss. In fact, cloud databases routinely handle massive volumes of data, and scale at any size, with no interruption to operations. That’s because cloud databases are distributed across data centers and feature built-in back-up and recovery. With automated failover in place, if one server goes down, replicated data in another data center is used. The result is continuous availability with no performance dips. End users will never know there was a problem.

Security

Built-in security is another benefit of moving to a cloud database. Cloud providers have experts on staff with the full-time job of monitoring the latest threats and adjusting protocols to keep data safe. The top cloud databases also provide automated security updates, as well as robust data encryption at rest and in transit. In other words, they effectively encrypt data moving across networks, as well information stored in databases, making life much more difficult for malicious hackers. Cloud service providers also use AI and machine learning to continuously uncover potential attacks and make preventative modifications in real-time.

Take the next step on your cloud journey

Cloud databases can improve your company’s scalability, agility, and security, while reducing risk and operational costs. Moving to a DBaaS can extend those benefits even further. This type of cloud database removes day-to-day infrastructure concerns, so you can focus on building great products and services.

Take the next step on your cloud journey. Learn about AstraDB, DataStax’s DBaaS built on Apache Cassandra and try it for free.