DBaaS comparison: Amazon vs. Microsoft

Abstract

Cloud-based computing holds promise for businesses that no longer need to own and maintain costly fixed-hardware assets. Seeing the benefits of lower costs and scale-as-needed capability, businesses are pursuing the cloud in ever increasing numbers. Database-as-a-Service (DBaaS) offerings are increasingly attractive to IT professionals. Many DBaaS offerings are relational database management systems requiring the use of SQL, but some are based on alternative technologies like NoSQL databases. In this paper, we look at both. In particular, we select DBaaS offerings from Amazon and Microsoft (viz., Amazon RDS, Amazon DynamoDB, Azure SQL Database and Azure DocumentDB) and parse out similarities and differences in their features.