MySQL, MongoDB 

A managed database is a cloud computing service in which the end user pays a cloud service provider for access to a database. Unlike a typical database, users don’t have to set up or maintain a managed database on their own; rather, it’s the provider’s responsibility to oversee the database’s infrastructure. This allows the user to focus on building their application instead of spending time configuring their database and keeping it up to date. 

Benefits of Managed Databases 

Managed database services can help to reduce many of the headaches associated with provisioning and managing a database. For one thing, developers build applications on top of managed database services to drastically speed up the process of provisioning a database server. With a self-managed solution, you must obtain a server (either on-premises or in the cloud), connect to it from a client or terminal, configure and secure it, and then install and set up the database management software before you can begin storing data. With a managed database, you only must decide on the initial size of the database server, configure any additional provider-specific options, and you’ll have a new database ready to integrate with your app or website. This can usually be done in just a few minutes through the provider’s user interface. 

Another appeal of managed databases is automation. Self-managed databases can consume a large amount of an organization’s resources because its employees have to perform every administrative task — from scaling to performing updates, running migrations, and creating backups — manually. With a managed database, however, these and other tasks are done either automatically or on-demand, which markedly reduces the risk of human error. 

This relates to the fact that managed database services help to streamline the process of database scaling. Scaling a self-managed database can be very time- and resource-intensive. Whether you choose sharding, replication, load balancing, or something else as your scaling strategy, if you manage the infrastructure yourself then you’re responsible for ensuring that no data is lost in the process and that the application will continue to work properly. If you integrate your application with a managed database service, however, you can scale the database cluster on demand. Rather than having to work out the optimal server size or CPU usage beforehand, you can quickly provision more resources on-the-fly. This helps you avoid using unnecessary resources, meaning you also won’t pay for what you don’t need. 

Managed solutions tend to have built-in high-availability. In the context of cloud computing, a service is said to be highly available if it is stable and likely to run without failure for long periods of time. Most reputable cloud providers’ products come with a service level agreement (SLA), a commitment between the provider and its customers that guarantees the availability and reliability of their services. A typical SLA will specify how much downtime the customer should expect, and many also define the compensation for customers if these service levels are not met. This provides assurance for the customer that their database won’t crash and, if it does, they can at least expect some kind of reparation from the provider. 

In general, managed databases simplify the tasks associated with provisioning and maintaining a database. Depending on the provider, you or your team will still likely need some level of experience working with databases in order to provision a database and interact with it as you build and scale your application. Ultimately, though, the database-specific experience needed to administer a managed database will be much less than with self-managed solution. 

Of course, managed databases aren’t able to solve every problem, and may prove to be a less-than-ideal choice for some. Next, we’ll go over a few of the potential drawbacks one should consider before provisioning a managed database.