Cloud Database

A cloud database is a database that typically runs on a Cloud computing platform. In other words it a database that has been built for a virtualised computing environment. Primarily there are two ways of running a database on the cloud. Users can purchase a virtual machine image for a limited time to run database on the cloud or let database service provided handle all the activities.

Putting the database in the cloud makes a lot of sense as it allows individual users, organizations and their applications to store, manage and retrieve data from the cloud as a part of wider software-as-a-service (SaaS) deployment.

Cloud databases are accessed either through a web browser or a vendor provided API for application. Cloud databases are also provided as a service where the service provider takes over the task of database installation, deployment and resource assignment among others.

Database on cloud offers some very distinct advantages. Organizations or end users need only to pay for the storage space and bandwidth they consume. Account holders by virtue of having their database in cloud have the freedom of moving their data from location to another without the slightest of hassles. The level of scalability is also high for database stored on clouds.