The lifeblood of any transactional application is the database that populates its fields. Some are in the back end, some are caches that hold data outside the database. The key for developers is to build the integrations that allow that data to interact with applications and services, whether on the ground or in the cloud. These providers flat-out know databases, and how to connect them to a multitude of endpoints.

This is where the pundits say organizations need to be, citing the big benefit of cost reduction to an organization in terms of hardware and people to maintain the server room. The *-as-a-service model is also appealing to companies who want to “pay as they go” for software and platform use. It’s a race to the clouds, and these are the early leaders.