DBaaS, which is sometimes referred to as a cloud database, provides many kinds of databases as a managed service. DBaaS works in the same way as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) or Platform as a Service (PaaS). IaaS provides infrastructure components and PaaS provides development platforms as managed services in the cloud. In fact, the offerings of IaaS and PaaS often include databases.
When customers demand a DBaaS offering in the cloud, they only pay for what they use on a monthly or annual basis. They do not have to pay for what they do not use. The cloud providers are responsible for managing database services such as maintenance, upgrades, or administration for their customers. At present, the DBaaS offerings include both relational database management systems (RDBMS) and NoSQL databases.
The primary advantage of the cloud service model is that customers do not have to install or maintain their software in the data center; it is well understood by every developer. However, there are also some disadvantages, such as a lack of control over network performance issues or the inability to compress data or other database maintenance tasks.
PostgreSQL can be delivered as DBaaS on many clouds, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud SQL, Microsoft Azure, Heroku, and EnterpriseDB Cloud.
