Choosing the Right Cloud Database Service offered by cloud providers : AWS, Azure and GCP

The majority of cloud providers started off treating databases as application that could be run on general-purpose compute instances. However, they quickly started adding higher-level application services to their IaaS offerings. Cloud databases have grown to be a crucial area of technological advancement, with manufacturers battling for customers by introducing several database kinds.

Architects, administrators, and developers must be aware of the various database options available because the IT industry is currently experiencing a significant displacement of data-centric workloads to the cloud.

Ensure that the IT team (including DBA and App Team) choose the cloud database provider that best suits the requirements of your business by following the below tips :

1. Become familiar with the database's options:

The deployment architecture and the database requirements are the two main factors to take into account while selecting cloud database services. Each element will include parameters specific to a given application.

The following are the variables that influence cloud database selection:
- Deployment environment: on-site, in a public cloud or clouds, or a combination of hosted and private resources.
- Database manager: specifically, whether the database will be self-managed or a cloud service (DBaaS).
- Database type: including relational SQL (RDBS), distributed SQL, NoSQL variants like a column (key-value) store, wide column or document DB, cache, graph, or various specialty databases like time series and quantum ledger.
- Availability and resilience requirements: these will dictate whether many replicated and synchronized instances are required.
- Performance and capacity requirements: these include transactions per second, query latency, and scalability of both database throughput and capacity.
- Flexibility: defining precise version criteria and the degree of authority required for an IT staff to manage more intricate elements like database setup and configuration.

IT teams including DBA's and Application team should investigate the spectrum of database services offered by AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform to suit their individual requirements.

2. Examine cloud trade-offs:

Cloud database services are more cost-effective for businesses looking to cut costs than self-managed internal database systems because they do not require hardware, system administration, or any DBA overhead. Using cloud goods built on open source or in-house produced software, which does not require license costs, also increases the savings for businesses.

Cloud database services work well for businesses that:
- Desire the simplest, fastest implementation possible.
- Desire access to a large selection of database products without having to set up and maintain each one.
- Reluctant to oversee the software.
- Require maximum expandability.
- Desire high availability through a number of widely separated instances.
- Recognize the benefits of the cloud's intrinsic security and its shared security paradigm; additionally, you don't have to micromanage every database option.

In general, cloud users need to understand the limitations on the capacity and performance of specific database instances. Nonetheless, problems may frequently be handled using a distributed architecture that takes advantage of networking and replication capabilities included in cloud solutions.

3. Analyze your consumption and business:

Consider some of the following aspects while making the best choice for the workloads at your organisation.
First, database and cloud infrastructure products are better suited for new applications than for aging ones. IT departments may decide to shift old systems to the cloud, meanwhile, if they wish to get off outdated hardware, experience utilization spikes, and anticipate cost savings from the cloud's consumption-based pricing. IT teams may need to relocate a historical database in order to connect it with more recent apps if an organization is pursuing a cloud-native strategy.

However, a hybrid cloud deployment—where on-premises data is replicated to or accessed from the cloud—is typically a better starting point and provides better risk management than a lift-and-shift database migration if you're hesitant to jump right into the cloud. By using a hybrid strategy, IT can also move its primary system from the on-premises database to the cloud, with the on-premises database serving as a backup.

Systems architects and application developers need to be especially mindful of service costs when designing cloud-based environments, regardless of the cloud database they use. This is because careless usage and setups can quickly negate any potential savings from cloud deployments.