Four Companies Rethink Databases for the Cloud

Starkey is founder and CTO of NimbusDB, which is trying to address those problems with a "radical restart" of relational database innovation. Its software has "nothing in common with pre-existing systems," according to Starkey, except that developers can however use the standard SQL query language.

"One of the big advantages of cloud computing is you don't have to make all the decisions up front. You start with what's easy and transition into another environment without having to go offline," he said.