DBaaS Navigator - Introduction & Disclaimer

Introduction - The What? and How? of the DBaaS Navigator

The DBaaS Navigator is a holistic source of knowledge about Database-as-a-Service products. After we already created a DBaaS introduction with market overview last year, it became clear to us that a proper product comparison and product selection is not possible. This is because the DBaaS products are too heterogeneous to conclude the right product from the price alone. The technical differences are too large and the services and pricing models of the DBaaS products are too different.

This deficit is addressed by the DBaaS Navigator. On behalf of our customers, we have already analyzed numerous products and conducted performance measurements. We are now bundling this knowledge in this open-source data source and adding to it successively, completely publicly and free of charge.

If you would like to have a product added, please contact us.

Let's get started with the first steps in DBaaS Navigator!

1. Product selection

The start of the DBaaS Navigator is the selection of the desired DBMS technology. The following DBMS technologies are currently available for selection here:

• MongoDB: Document-based DBaaS based on MongoDB or comparable proprietary databases.
• Cassandra: Column-oriented DBaaS products based on Apache Cassandra or comparable proprietary databases
• MySQL & MariaDB: MySQL-compatible relational databases
• PostgreSQL: PostgreSQL-compatible relational databases

If you don't know which database technology is right for you, we will be happy to advise you further. Contact

Further database technologies as well as DBaaS products will be integrated successively, see roadmap.

The selection of DBMS technology can of course be changed in the following.

2. Weighting of the categories

The DBaaS Navigator compares more than 60 individual attributes. These are sorted into 5 categories:

• Deployment: Everything about resources, technical features and setting options of the respective DBaaS products.
• Management: Management tooling and features, as well as GDPR, compliance and community information.
• Support: Categorization and comparison of support plans as well as SLAs.
• Performance: Comparative, independent performance measurements on selected sample scenarios.
• Pricing: Analysis of the pricing model and payment modality, as well as monthly sample invoice and price-performance ratio.

These 5 categories can be weighted here according to own preference in 4 steps, 0-3, to create a comparison according to own requirements.

3. Attributes & Scores

Each of the 5 categories contains between 12 and 20 attributes. Each attribute has a defined set of values and a maximum number of points that can be achieved. This is based on the attribute differences and the importance of the attribute in the overall context. Different DBMS technologies can have different attributes.

Furthermore, the attributes and values sometimes have additional explanatory tooltips, marked by a corresponding symbol. These convey helpful information and explanatory details.

In the future, each attribute can also be weighted individually to allow even more fine-grained customization to one's own preferences. This feature is only available to registered users and employees of partner companies.

In the following, some information about important attributes or attributes that need to be explained:

Management - EU GDPR Compliance & CCPA Policy. For many European customers in the cloud and data environment, data protection compliance according to EU-GDPR is very important. In the cloud context, after the end of the "EU US Privacy Shield" agreement and the criticism of the standard contractual clauses, particular reference must be made here to the "US Cloud Act", which comes into play when working with American companies. This attribute attempts to address this point. For legal questions and uncertainties, please contact your data protection officer or specialist lawyer. The same applies in a similar form to the "California Customer Protection Act (CCPA)".

Management - Community Rating Based on experience reports as well as the underlying developer community, an attempt is made here to provide a practical assessment. What is the use of the best technology on paper if no one is familiar with it, or if it does not deliver what it promises in practice. From 6 common factors, we try to create a realistic overall picture and evaluate it.

Support - Support Plans The analysis of support and SLA contracts is very time-consuming. To create comparability between the different support solutions, we have introduced 4 support categories and mapped them to the support plans of the respective providers. FREE is the free-integrated support, if available. Additionally, there are 3 categories BASIC, ENTERPRISE & PREMIUM. By default, the BASIC plan is set. This can be changed via the dropdown on the left.

**Performance - Throughput Based on a defined workload, the performance of the respective DBaaS product was measured on comparable resources, with up to 3 different cloud providers. The cloud providers can be changed with the dropdown. Details about the workload and the resources can be found in the Disclaimer.

Pricing - Monthly Costs. Monthly costs are calculated based on a defined resource size. Depending on the provider's pricing model, they may include storage, backup, network and support costs in addition to direct VM costs to ensure comparability. Details can be found in the tooltip. The individual items are also listed transparently below. More information about pricing in the disclaimer.

Pricing - Performance/Costs This attribute is one of the most important key figures of the DBaaS Navigator. The performance achieved under "Performance - Throughput" is divided by the monthly costs. So you get a statement about how many database operations per monthly invested USA dollar you get per second. Sounds abstract, but it is very important and establishes a direct connection between performance and costs.

Roadmap

The DBaaS Navigator is currently still in a very early state. There are still some features planned and many products have yet to be integrated.

Features & UX

• Attribute level weighting
• Color highlighting of points
• Improvement of data types
• UX & visual improvements
• Filters/settings on resource size, support, cloud, key features
• Total Cost of Ownership Calculator

Data

• Performance measurements for 3 resource sizes (currently: 1)
• Performance measurements for 3 workload types (currently: 1)
• Pricing calculation for 3 resource sizes (currently: 1)
• Additional cloud providers per product
• Practical support test: There are sometimes big differences between theory and practice when it comes to support. What good is support that looks great on paper, but offers no help in practice? Unfortunately, we have witnessed this discrepancy in numerous projects and it should be included in this attribute.
• more data attributes: Suggestions are welcome
• News feed about the products

DBaaS Products

• New group: Redis database technology or comparable key/value technologies
• New group: Time-Series DBaaS
• New group: Analytical Databases
• more products in existing categories

We are glad about further suggestions, please contact us.

Disclaimer

Please note the information below. If you need independent advice on DBaaS, please contact us. We can provide product consulting that is right for you, including application-specific performance measurements and cost calculations. Take the chance to use our expertise and knowledge to your advantage. Contact us!

General

The data shown here has been researched and prepared to the best of our knowledge and belief. For a completeness and correctness, benchANT assumes no liability. The points have been assigned after individual, independent decisions according to a fixed scheme. Please contact us if you notice incorrect or outdated data.

Performance measurements

Measurements were automated using the benchANT benchmarking platform. For this purpose, comparable DBaaS resources of the respective DBaaS providers were selected. Unfortunately, this is not possible 1:1 in every case. Please compare the technical specifications in the respective tooltip. For each DBMS technology, a specific, exemplary workload was defined with which the performance was measured. Please do not make generalized assumptions about performance for other resource sizes and workloads. Benchmark yourself, or contact us to perform this for your specific use case. All benchmark measurement information is published in a fully transparent manner on GitHub: https://github.com/benchANT/dbaas-navigator

Pricing

The pricing models of the respective DBaaS providers differ in great detail, often certain cost items are only listed in the T&Cs or contract details. In addition, prices can vary greatly by region, resource or setting. No guarantee is given for the up-to-dateness of the prices, as they can sometimes change several times a month. For the network costs, an assumption of 10% of the monthly VM costs was made if these are not included. Depending on the structure of the application, network costs may vary considerably.