TrustRadius Insights for IBM Cloud Databases are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Pros
Scalability: Users have appreciated the scalability of IBM Cloud Databases, noting that it can easily accommodate growing data needs. They find the ability to scale on-demand based on requirements to be a significant advantage.
Fully Managed Service: The fully managed aspect of IBM Cloud Databases is well-received by users as it simplifies the database management process, allowing them to focus on other aspects of their business without worrying about database maintenance.
User-Friendly Interface: The user interface of IBM Cloud Databases is praised for being friendly, comprehensive, and easy to navigate. Users value how the intuitive design contributes to a seamless experience and efficient task completion.
Less Appropriate Scenario: 1) Small Scale or Low Budget Projects 2) Organizations with limited expertise in cloud technologies may find the learning curve steep, especially if they are not familiar with the IBM Cloud platform 3) If database requirements are highly dynamic and change frequently, the comprehensive features and management provided by IBM Cloud Databases might be overkill. A more flexible, self-managed solution could be preferable for adapting to rapid changes.
Alternatives
N/A for other services, but used IBM because of reputation as it is an industry giant who has been a big player in the IT industry for years.
We cannot do mass migration at a time we need to execute slots wise
Likelihood to Recommend
Setup and migration [are] easy and [...] flexible. Easy to use and flexible UI. Security features are also added advantage.
Alternatives
AWS Database Migration Service and AWS Elastic Beanstalk
UI is easier to use and flexible. AWS EBS is very simple to use and do upgrades and monitor the upgrades easily. I also recommend IBM to implement these.
Understanding the choices between different database packages
Setting up a cloud foundry connection - restored to SSL certification connection
Likelihood to Recommend
It's very well suited to trialing a database, or databases, allowing you to add subtract and build an infrastructure to suit your need and swap and change as required or desired. Also, it allows you to try different types of data storage easily and experiment with set-up configuration and resources. Web management interface management is clear, clean, and reactive.
Can be linked through multiple resources and information
Cons
More added features for diverse users.
More cloud geographic locations
End to end encryption
Likelihood to Recommend
Ibm Cloud are well suited for students and local levels to use and learn. At industrial level , once expertise in working and functioning of cloud is achieved , IBM clouds are one of the most competitive and comparable feature. Development and resources in IBM cloud are outstanding. Functional equivalence. BDA can be helpful in IBM clouds as well as AI connectivity via Watson.
Alternatives
IBM API Connect
No I haven't yet used other ones more so can't make a judgement
VU
Verified User
Team Lead in Engineering (Computer Software company, 1001-5000 employees)
Everything under one roof, having all our data needs taken care of from a single vendor makes management much easier
Integrates with IBM Cloud platform natively
Cons
Does not support Let's Encrypt for secured connection. Currently IBM Cloud Databases only support self-signed certificate, which is more troublesome to configure.
Due to compliance requirements, IBM Cloud Databases have a tendency to deprecate and EOL various older versions of the databases offered, sometimes you have very short window to upgrade.
Likelihood to Recommend
If you are on IBM Cloud, then using IBM Cloud Databases is an obvious choice. It is natively available and offers a wide range of different database products that would cover most common use cases. If you are not on IBM Cloud but are interested to use the databases offered, such as MongoDB, it is still a viable option as sometimes it can be more cost effective compared to alternatives.
Alternatives
We started with IBM Compose, which later got merged into and became IBM Cloud Databases.
VU
Verified User
Employee in Information Technology (Computer Software company, 1-10 employees)
We use it for our low-traffic cloud data warehousing and reporting on our HRM product. Using Compose made it relatively simple to scale up and down as per traffic. Also the pricing was quite cheap.
Provides a low-cost solution where we can place our data warehouses for multiple products. Tied in with Watson Studio it provides great utility for our data scientists.
Pros
Scaling
Pricing
Documentation
Cons
Used to use third-party providers. Not the latest version.
Likelihood to Recommend
IBM Cloud Databases is well suited to production grade applications, websites, low volume data warehousing, and light AI work.
Alternatives
AWS RDS & Oracle OCI. AWS RDS has a wider range of databases but at a higher cost. IBM Compose has fewer databases but is perfect for data related solutions like data warehousing (IBM Db2 AI enabled Warehouse is a GREAT product!)
We are using IBM Cloud Databases across different departments. Currently, it's mainly used for POCs and to implement Cloud-Native architecture. We are using Cloudant and PostgreSQL. IBM Cloud Databases provide us easy to use redundancy and point in time recovery.
Pros
Strong backup strategy
Different database options including SQL and NoSQL
Fast database provisioning
Reduced the need for DBA
Cons
Would like more database options added, e.g Cassandra DB
Limited data centre options
No data browser available for PostgreSQL
Likelihood to Recommend
It offers strong support for PostgreSQL and Cloudant. It has an easy UI to work with and to scale PostgreSQL. Data at-rest and desk encryption of PostgreSQL is available.
Alternatives
We have Cassandra database that is currently not available as part of IBM Cloud Databases. We ended up using classic infrastructure IaaS to host our Cassandra server.
VU
Verified User
Engineer in Engineering (Computer Software company, 11-50 employees)
IBM Cloud Databases is used (along with IBM Cloud Object Store) as part of a backend system supporting client, eGrove Education Inc.'s, mobile app which helps high school and college STEM students develop their spatial visualization skills through automatically-graded free-hand sketching in a mobile app.
A CloudFoundry app uses IBM Cloud Databases as a synchronization source/sink and system of record for assigned material (both text and media blob data), course rosters, grading results, etc. (Because of the volume of student-produced sketches, student sketches are stored in Cloud Object Store).
Pros
ACID Compliance vs non-ACID compliance of the most popular open-source relational database (MySQL).
Fully managed solution: no bumbling with server installation/setup/maintenance.
Reliable high-availability implementation.
Cons
Yet more fine-grained provisioning (but thanks for the improvements!) For example, currently there is a 3-core minimum for dedicated cores.
Likelihood to Recommend
This is my current go-to solution where a relational database in the cloud is a requirement. The IBM Cloud Databases PostgreSQL implementation is particular attractive vs. alternatives available from other cloud providers because of relational databases scale "up" well (while generally not scaling "out" well or at all) and IBM is able to offer the ultimate scale-up, the recently available, Hyper Protect DBAAS. I can build today on IBM Cloud Databases for PostgreSQL with the knowledge that in the future, if needed, I can scale up to a solution running on massive Z-Series hardware that is at the same time much more secure (particularly from side-channel attack) than solutions running on Intel hardware.
Alternatives
I did compare IBM Compose for PostgreSQL with PostgreSQL offerings available from Amazon and Google. IBM Compose was judged easier to provision and maintain.
I'm pleased with the additional more granular provisioning flexibility and more favorable cost structure that has come with the transition to IBM Databases for PostgreSQL.
IBM Compose is used to connect Redis and MySQL databases to our analysis software. The software we designed manages wifi-enabled energy consumption devices.
Pros
Provides an easy and consistent way of using connection strings.
User-friendly.
Quick to create new databases.
Cons
It is a useful service, no cons which I can recall.
Likelihood to Recommend
Particularly good for tech startups needing to quickly connect and test standard databases with their systems.
