REVIEW OF CLOUD DATABASE BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES

The volume of data is increasing rapidly, that is why using cloud computing to store and process data may be inevitable. Providers offer many database services in public cloud that include many types of traditional relational and non-relational databases, as well as special purpose databases. Organizations can then migrate their data to cloud databases, however, decisions makers need to be aware of cloud benefits and challenges. Data in cloud is globally distributed, computing resources can be scaled up or down according to demand, cloud providers guarantee high level of service availability, many manual database administration tasks are automated. Data partitioning, replication and scaling ensure high performance. Certain applications of databases are cheaper than in private environments, however, sometimes using cloud database may be more expensive. Security is considered as a one of the main cloud database concerns due to storing data in external infrastructure. Due to regulations, organizations have to consider data privacy issues. Shared infrastructure offered in cloud is beneficial, however, sometimes isolated environments are better for cloud databases.