Learn More About Database as a Service (DBaaS) Providers
What is Database as a Service (DBaaS)?
Database as a Service (DBaaS) is the software used to set up, operate, and scale databases in the cloud. Users can access a cloud database system without having to purchase hardware, install additional software, or even manage the database themselves. All these activities are done by the DBaaS provider, including upgrades, new software additions, availability of the database at all times, and downtime minimization. A few minutes of deployment time could replace weeks of time for development and installation work. DBaaS has been growing in popularity since it allows customers to focus on business operations and decisions.
The DBaaS software will manage runtime environment, OS, middleware, servers, storage, networking capabilities, and virtualization, whereas the customer needs to manage applications and data. In an on-premise environment, a customer needs to handle all the components mentioned above.
Evolution of DBaaS
Companies spent their finances to get servers, storage, database management systems, and any other hardware that would be installed and located within their own data center. Along with infrastructure costs, training for IT staff on this hardware was required. Additional costs such as maintenance and licensing all led to a very high total cost of ownership (TCO) for the vendor. Companies were so busy focusing on developing their data centers that several ended up forgetting the reasons they were installed in the first place—to streamline business processes and make data-driven decisions. IT administrators would take a long time to troubleshoot and fix errors, and these would often cause downtimes and delays affecting the entire business. Considering these exorbitant costs, SME or SMBs would find it extremely difficult to invest in such requirements.
As these issues grew along with the time and cost, companies realized a need for a more efficient process in place. The focus was now on automating tasks—virtualization, containerization, and several other technologies grew significantly. Finally, with the advent of cloud computing databases being offered as a service not only by some of the largest cloud providers (such as Amazon Relational Database Service, IBM Db2, Azure SQL Database, and Google Cloud Firestore) but also on-premises database management system providers, people realized the importance of cloud.
What Does DBaaS Stand For?
DBaaS stands for Database as a Service. DBaaS is also known as managed database service. Usage of a DBaaS software means that there is no need for a user to deploy a database management system (DBMS) on premises since it is a managed service. It uses all the benefits of cloud computing to ensure that the user has low to zero initial infrastructure costs.
What are the Common Features of Database as a Service (DBaaS)?
The following are some core features within the DBaaS that can help users in several ways:
Automation: Database administration, access control, monitoring, and several other tasks are completely automated. The customers do not need to concern themselves with these tasks, since they are designed in a manner that the machine itself will automatically execute all tasks without any human intervention.
Self-service capabilities: Since the DBaaS software is fully automated, admin tasks can be automated as well. These tasks can be scheduled to support different database activities. DBaaS providers will support numerous automated tasks such as OS and kernel updates, back-up scheduling and restoration, software patching, and built-in replication among others.
On-demand usage: Users can opt for the DBaaS as per requirement, and it only takes a couple of minutes to set up. There are overall IT savings since the customer will only pay as per usage.
Dynamic: The DBaaS software is a flexible platform and will use the resources available as required. It will tailor itself to match the user's environment needs.
True high availability (HA) and resilience: DBaaS systems need to show true HA so that the system is dependable enough to continuously work without any errors. For a DBaaS system, HA means that users can run several critical applications and workloads without having to worry about a database failing or becoming unavailable due to any failure.
What are the Benefits of Database as a Service (DBaaS)?
Some of the key benefits of DBaaS software is provided below:
Low initial costs: Since the customer does not need to invest in any hardware, there are no upfront costs associated with database technologies. In addition, the customer does not need to purchase additional database management systems if the need for scaling arrives. The customer only needs to pay a subscription fee for using the DBaaS software which is determined by the resources being consumed. In case a customer needs to purchase additional capacity in the future, they can just opt to subscribe for the same or add additional features to their subscription pricing plan.
Scalability: Since the customer would not own the hardware itself, the DBaaS software vendor will provide the customer with a flexible and scalable infrastructure to scale up or down based on their database needs. A customer can scale down the number of resources being used during off-peak times, and increase its resources during high-peak requirements. This benefit is also very useful when we consider very large datasets or big data applications.
Reduced risk complexities: When creating a DBaaS service level agreement (SLA), the cloud computing provider needs to ensure that the customer will be provided a certain amount of uptime. In case this fails, the customer can be compensated for the same.
Supports configurability: Most of the DBaaS providers provide numerous options for customers to configure their DBaaS as per their database. Since there are several different types of databases, this configurability feature is a must to ensure the quality of the DBMS process.
Lower admin costs: Since there is no hardware owned by the customer, there is no requirement for a database management team to handle it. Most of the operations are handled by the DBaaS provider and customers can choose what they prefer to control. IT staff can refocus their time on working on other applications, software, and workloads.
Improved time to market: When using an on-premises database, development teams usually raise a ticket to their IT teams to provide some information which could take days. But with DBaaS software, developers can also be allowed to access the DBaaS capabilities, and download their required data or information in a matter of minutes.
Security: Since cloud providers have their own strong and secure encryption and security methods to ensure that customer data is safe on the cloud, these security features are extended to a DBaaS customer as well. DBaaS software providers will also take care of any government compliance data regulations such as HIPAA.
Who Uses Database as a Service (DBaaS)?
Some of the key personas that use DBaaS are listed below:
DBaaS administrator: This persona will be primarily responsible for maintaining and managing the DBaaS software. A DBaaS administrator can use the software to create, delete, and restore database deployments, can monitor service usage in the cloud, and send requests to scale or patch up as required.
Cloud account administrator: A cloud account administrator manages the cloud accounts for an organization. They can create users and provide them access to the DBaaS solutions. The administrator will be responsible for deleting and adding user personas as well.
Identity domain administrator: This persona will be in charge of creating cloud service administrators and creating accounts for the DBaaS administrator within a particular identity domain.
Nonuser or administrator: This persona will work with the cloud service. This user will be assigned application roles, service roles, workload-related tasks, and others. Users will be able to access several database instances within a particular identity domain.
Application owner: Within the organization, the application owner will use the DBaaS software to access or call any database required for running the application. There is no need to wait for days to raise any request to get access to a database.
Developers: Developers can use several cloud-hosted APIs to build new applications and access and manipulate the data for various programs. Because of this feature, DBaaS shares several similarities with other SaaS or PaaS cloud-based offerings.
Challenges with Database as a Service (DBaaS)
DBaaS solutions can come with their own set of challenges.
Lack of control: This is considered to be the biggest challenge that customers face with DBaaS. Customers do not have direct access to servers that are running the database. The customer cannot be involved in the physical security of the servers or even cybersecurity that protects the data. If for any reason the server stops working, the customer is affected until the cloud provider fixes it.
Security concerns: Although DBaaS providers provide top-notch security from their cloud computing capabilities, organizations might find using DBaaS a challenge. The fact that the customer would not have control over how the data is stored, accessed, transmitted, or backed up could cause severe security concerns. There have been numerous data breaches being reported daily across the globe and several organizations are becoming wary of using DBaaS software.
Dependency on the cloud provider for additional enhancements: There is a lack of physical control when a customer opts for a DBaaS solution. In case a customer wants to upgrade their service with enhanced security products, for example, the customer will not have any control over the same. They can raise a ticket request with the cloud provider. There is no method in place for a customer to implement any additional services that they want which are not offered by the cloud provider. So in the example above, the customer would need to wait until that particular security enhancement is supported by the cloud provider or opt for the one that the cloud provider is offering.
Vendor lock-in challenges: Several DBaaS solution offerings will provide numerous features today to move more customer databases to the cloud. However, no one can predict the future so what is a good decision today may not be one tomorrow. As an example, data privacy and compliance regulations in the future could pressurize EU customers to store their data in a particular location, but due to vendor lock-in issues, the customer could run into several problems since several DBaaS cloud providers such as Amazon, Google, and Oracle are based out of US headquarters.
How to Buy Database as a Service (DBaaS)
Under this section, a customer can gather and prioritize key requirements and RFI distribution, specifically for DBaaS software:
Requirements Gathering (RFI/RFP) for Database as a Service (DBaaS)
For customers looking for a wide array of DBaaS options, having a neutral opinion will be key to choosing one. Customers can use reviews here at G2.com as a guide to move forward with the DBaaS option.
When choosing a DBaaS option, it’s very important to ask the following questions:
- Does the cloud provider support the type of database that is required?
- Can the provider support scaling requirements in the future?
- Are there standards for data protection and regulations?
- Does the provider have support teams present in case of any query?
- Is it a high availability (HA) software? Is it able to withstand any nodal failures?
- Does it have a robust backup? Does it support built-in replication?
By answering these questions, the customer will have an understanding of what kind of DBaaS service provider would be the best fit for their organization. Understanding the customer’s database type or technology and making sure that the cloud provider can support this database is key.
Compare Database as a Service (DBaaS) Products
Create a long list
In this step, buyers should keep their options open to consider the full range of products. Buyers have the freedom to explore numerous offerings that the DBaaS market has. In addition, this is the main step to evaluate the answers to the above questions. The long list can be made much more concise and smaller by addressing the goals.
Create a short list
Buyers can make much more granular comparisons on this step. In addition to this, buyers can use the G2 reviews to further narrow this list down.
Conduct demos
Once the list has been reduced to a couple of vendors, buyers may begin to request a demo. During a DBaaS demo, buyers should seek out information that is related to their non-negotiable terms. This is a good stage where the buyer can delve more deeply into understanding how secure their database will be, what the features are—latency in loading databases, after-service support, staff training, and other additional features that can be provided.
Selection of Database as a Service (DBaaS)
Choose a selection team
Choosing the right team to work together to decide the right DBaaS software is a critical part of the process. This team will be in charge of overseeing the entire database migration to cloud. The team should include a mix of different personas who have the required skills, the interest, and the time. Some roles include DBaaS admins, cloud engineers, and IT admins. The buyer administrator is one of the key personnel required for this selection team since this admin will control the buying process. For smaller firms that want to move to DBaaS, they might not have several employees to be a part of this team, and therefore they might need to overlap roles to make the best assessment.
Negotiation
A buyer can choose to negotiate to trim costs. The buyer needs to note that if in the future there is a requirement for scaling, there would be additional costs or an increase to the subscription pricing. Keeping such factors in mind will help the buyer to put forward better negotiation tactics for the specific functions that matter.
Final decision
Once all the steps are complete, the final decision is made weighing all factors and scenarios. Having a trial run of the DBaaS software is a good place to start. A small group of developers or admins can use the DBaaS software to see if there are viable benefits and pass on their views to the team making the final decision.
