Issue link: https://resources.awscloud.com/i/1496544
CHAPTER 4 Conclusion For many years after Amazon.com opened the first major cloud offering, the trade press presented the question facing system administrators and DBAs as "Cloud or not cloud?" Soon, on- premises clouds and hybrid offerings joined pure cloud solutions as options to consider. But the choices were always more complicated. As this report has shown, offerings have multiplied rapidly. DBAs must simultaneously evaluate databases along all the following axes: • Third-party vendor, on-premises, or hybrid • Relational or one of the many nonrelational varieties • Managed or self-managed • Cloud native (e.g., Amazon Aurora) or cross-platform (e.g., MySQL) • Whether to take advantage of performance enhancements such as solid-state drives or caches • Physical locations of cloud regions and availability zones • Ease of migration • Relevant skills needed and possessed by your staff • Other aspects of vendor support and reputation It is not a good idea to prematurely tie yourself to a choice in one area before looking at all options. It can well be that you can save a lot of money and improve customer experience by taking on some extra training or making a leap into an unfamiliar technology. 39