AWS Offers Online Database Service For Free

AWS Offers Online Database Service For Free

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has opened its online database service for public beta testing and said a certain level of usage will be free, at least for now.
Amazon SimpleDB, a Web service providing core database functions such as indexing and querying, will be free for at least the next six months under the public beta that started Monday, the company said.



AWS also reduced the price for structured data storage through the service. The price has been cut to US$0.25 per G byte per month, from $1.50 per G byte per month.

AWS was a pioneer in the cloud-computing infrastructure market but now faces competition from similar IT services. Most recently, Microsoft said its Windows Azure service will compete with AWS.