Rich Edwards

Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) is a popular and powerful option for organizations that want to remove all distractions so they can give laser-like attention to what matters most&mdash;innovation and delivering value to their customers. That&rsquo;s because DBaaS frees development teams up to do their best work by removing the hassle of database management and maintenance. In this article, we&rsquo;ll explore several DBaaS application examples and use cases to showcase the breadth of its real-world capabilities and benefits. But, first, let&rsquo;s level set and go a little deeper on DBaaS to make sure we&rsquo;re all on the same page about just what DBaaS is.
<h2>Understanding Database-as-a-Service</h2>
DBaaS is a fully managed way to have databases hosted in the cloud. With significant benefits compared to on-premises databases and more than a decade of successful implementations, DBaaS is a popular, fast growing subset of cloud databases.
Whether you have a relational or a NoSQL database, signing up for a DBaaS subscription shifts the responsibility for its management, maintenance, infrastructure, hardware, software, scaling, availability, and performance to a third-party provider. With DBaaS, the database scales up to meet business needs and scales down during non-peak times. That being the case, it&rsquo;s an efficient way to operate that minimizes waste and removes difficult capacity planning from your plate. Provisioning databases in an on-premises environment can take weeks. With DBaaS, the process is reduced to minutes. With data distributed and replicated across many servers, DBaaS is much more reliable and available than on-premises databases. DBaaS platforms are also very secure, with enterprise-grade security, encryption, and identity and access management (IAM) being the norm. On top of all that, DBaaS is cost effective. With pay-as-you-go pricing, you will only be charged for the resources you use.
<h2>Examples of DBaaS Applications&nbsp;</h2>
Now, let&rsquo;s dig into some examples of DBaaS at work. Since we&rsquo;re most familiar with our own NoSQL DBaaS, DataStax<a href="https://www.datastax.com/products/datastax-astra"> Astra DB</a>, it seems like the best place to garner examples.&nbsp;
Example DBaaS applications with Astra DB on GitHub
<ul>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://github.com/DataStax-Examples/spring-data-starter">Use Astra DB and Spring Data Cassandra to build a REST API</a> for a backend service that interacts with products and orders.</li>
<li aria-level="1">In this full stack example,<a href="https://github.com/DataStax-Examples/todo-astra-jamstack-netlify"> combine Astra DB with JAMStack and Netlify to build a React to-do list application</a>. Astra DB&rsquo;s free tier is used as the storage backend.</li>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://github.com/DataStax-Examples/astra-next.js-starter">Integrate Astra DB into a Next.js API when building this starter app</a>. Astra DB is used as the storage backend.</li>
<li aria-level="1">Try out this development example and<a href="https://github.com/DataStax-Examples/astra-gatsbyjs-starter"> create a React.js, Gatsby application that reads data from DataStax Astra DB using GraphQL</a>.</li>
<li aria-level="1">If you&rsquo;re feeling confident, try out this expert-level sample.<a href="https://github.com/DataStax-Examples/astra-spark-migration"> Use Spark to migrate data from an existing Cassandra cluster to Astra DB</a>.</li>
</ul>
<a href="https://www.datastax.com/products/datastax-astra/examples">Bookmark all these examples in one handy place and give them a try</a>.
<h2>NoSQL DBaaS&nbsp;</h2>
As mentioned above, Astra DB is a NoSQL DBaaS, but it&rsquo;s not the only one. Next, we&rsquo;ll cover common NoSQL DBaaS use cases and highlight other major providers.
<h3>NoSQL DBaaS use cases</h3>
In the last section, we provided example NoSQL DBaaS applications using Astra DB, but what are some broader use cases? NoSQL is likely the right choice when you&rsquo;re dealing with a high variety of data types and massive scale, high throughput, always-on availability, and low latency are required. That means there are countless situations when moving forward with a NoSQL DBaaS makes sense&mdash;too many to list. But here are a handful of use cases where it has proven to be helpful:
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">Inventory management: The massive scalability and flexibility of DBaaS NoSQL is a good fit to handle changing and potentially very-high inventory levels. It&rsquo;s a good choice to make sure all products are accurately tracked and accounted for.</li>
<li aria-level="1">Authentication and identity management: For good reason, authentication and IAM are critical components to many apps. If these systems are slow or go down, everything is put on hold. That&rsquo;s why DBaaS NoSQL&rsquo;s always-on availability and real-time responsiveness make a lot of sense.</li>
<li aria-level="1">Logistics: Tracking the movement of packages, vehicles, and more around the world can be complicated, especially with a real-time requirement. NoSQL DBaaS solutions have the ability to ingest massive amounts of data to get the job done. Astra DB is multi-region and active active, enabling low latency and blazingly fast writes.</li>
<li aria-level="1">E-commerce: When it comes to e-commerce and online retail, the stakes are incredibly high. If a major retailer&rsquo;s online store crashed on Cyber Monday, it would be major news. Loyal customers might leave and never come back. NoSQL DBaaS platforms, with multi-region replication, ensure this won&rsquo;t happen. Speed is also critical to keeping customers happy. In the case of Cassandra, its peer-to-peer architecture provides superior responsiveness and availability by housing data geographically close to customers.</li>
<li aria-level="1">Internet of Things (IoT): NoSQL can handle massive amounts of data, with almost unlimited scalability. That has proven to be a good fit for IoT where organizations might need to collect and track continuous streams of data from millions or even billions of devices, such as sensors, vehicles, wearables, and more. The superior availability NoSQL DBaaS provides is also critically important for IoT, as a gap in the data could invalidate results and insights.</li>
</ul>
When it comes to NoSQL DBaaS use cases, that&rsquo;s just the tip of the iceberg.<a href="https://www.datastax.com/blog/sql-vs-nosql-whats-the-difference"> Explore more NoSQL use cases</a>, along with<a href="https://www.datastax.com/blog/sql-vs-nosql-pros-cons"> how it compares to relational databases</a>.
<h3>NoSQL DBaaS providers</h3>
While we firmly believe Astra DB&rsquo;s numerous advantages set it apart from the NoSQL DBaaS competition, the fact remains there are a lot of options. Here&rsquo;s a quick overview of some of the major players.
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
NoSQL DBaaS offerings
</td>
<td>
Description
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
DataStax Astra DB
</td>
<td>
Fully managed, multi-cloud, multi-model serverless database service built on Apache Cassandra.<a href="https://www.datastax.com/products/datastax-astra"> Learn more about Astra DB&rsquo;s advantages and try it for free</a>.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Google Bigtable
</td>
<td>
Wide column store, fully managed NoSQL database service built for large analytical and operational workloads. It can handle high read and write throughput. And, like other NoSQL offerings, it has high scalability and availability, with low latency.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
MongoDB Atlas
</td>
<td>
Document-oriented, multi-cloud DBaaS with a focus on resilience, scalability, data privacy and security. Includes built-in automation for resource and workload optimization.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Amazon DynamoDB
</td>
<td>
This key-value NoSQL database service is also fully managed and serverless. It&rsquo;s fast, flexible, and runs high-performance applications at scale.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB
</td>
<td>
Built for modern app development, this fully managed, multi-model database service guarantees fast response times and high availability. Features automatic scalability, with fast reads and writes.
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2>Relational DBaaS&nbsp;</h2>
If a traditional, relational database fits your company&rsquo;s goals and data structure needs, but you&rsquo;d like to move to the cloud and offload management and maintenance duties, then we have good news. There are plenty of DBaaS options for you too. Before reviewing providers, let&rsquo;s look at some use cases where relational DBaaS might make sense.&nbsp;
<h3>Relational DBaaS use cases</h3>
Relational databases (often called SQL databases) and NoSQL databases<a href="https://www.datastax.com/blog/sql-vs-nosql-pros-cons"> each have their pros and cons</a>. However, in general, both types of databases feature high scalability, availability, and throughput, with the ability to handle large volumes of data. It&rsquo;s a matter of degrees. NoSQL databases are generally more available, scalable, and faster. But the level a relational DBaaS can deliver for those capabilities, and others, may be all your organization needs. And perhaps your company requires some of the other benefits relational databases bring to the table, like higher, ACID-level compliance, and a standardized language (SQL) to conduct complex queries.
With that in mind, here are a few common relational DBaaS use cases:
<ul>
<li aria-level="1">Mobile and online games</li>
<li aria-level="1">Enterprise applications</li>
<li aria-level="1">Software as a Service (SaaS) applications</li>
<li aria-level="1">E-commerce with high compliance needs: Yes, e-commerce was one of the use cases listed above for NoSQL DBaaS. However, if your e-commerce compliance requirements outweigh the need for the highest possible level of availability, then a relational DBaaS could be the right choice.</li>
</ul>
Again, NoSQL can also handle these use cases well. The right choice depends on an organization&rsquo;s unique mix of needs in areas such as throughput, performance, responsiveness, availability, data variety, usage variability, security, and compliance, as well as the level each of those boxes needs to be checked.
<h3>Relational DBaaS providers</h3>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
Relational DBaaS offering
</td>
<td>
Description
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Microsoft Azure SQL Database
</td>
<td>
Scalable relational database service built for the cloud and incorporates AI-driven features. Includes serverless compute and Hyperscale storage options that automatically scale resources on demand.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Amazon RDS
</td>
<td>
Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) automates administrative tasks, such as provisioning, patching, and backups. Cost efficient, with resizable capacity, it&rsquo;s available on several database instance types. Can be optimized for performance, memory, or I/O.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
Amazon Aurora
</td>
<td>
Fully managed by Amazon RDS, Aurora is a distributed, cloud-based relational database that is compatible with MySQL and PostgresSQL. Cost-effectively delivers high performance, reliability, security, and availability. Features automatic scaling, fault tolerance, low-latency read replicas, continuous backup to Amazon S3, point-in-time recovery, and replication across multiple availability zones.
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2>H2 &ndash; Which DBaaS use cases make sense for your company?</h2>
Whether your organization uses NoSQL or relational databases, making the move to DBaaS comes with advantages for many use cases and applications.&nbsp;
If you&rsquo;re in the market for a fully managed, serverless NoSQL DBaaS, we encourage you to<a href="https://www.datastax.com/products/datastax-astra"> </a>take a close look at Astra DB. It&rsquo;s the fastest way to get started with Apache Cassandra&mdash;the world&rsquo;s most powerful database. In just a few clicks, you can begin benefiting from Cassandra&rsquo;s high performance, continuous availability, reliability, and massive, cost-effective scalability. And that&rsquo;s just scratching the surface of what Astra DB has to offer.
<a href="https://www.datastax.com/products/datastax-astra">Learn about Astra DB&rsquo;s additional benefits and give it a try for free</a>.

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