Amazon will unveil its database in the cloud service SimpleDB that lets customers manipulate and query data.

An excerpt from News.com:

“Amazon SimpleDB provides quick, efficient storage and retrieval of your data to support high performance Web applications,” the company said on its SimpleDB Web site. “Amazon SimpleDB is easy to use and provides the core functionality of a database — real-time lookup and simple querying of structured data — without the operational complexity.”

SimpleDB will add to two other Web offerings from Amazon: Elastic Cloud Computing (EC2) and Simple Storage Service (S3). SimpleDB in not exactly a full-fledged relational database in the sky. There are certain limitations to it, but it supports the basic CRUD operations. The beta service will be available in the next few weeks.

Firing a whole database from the clouds may be the best thing to happen for start-ups that don’t want to invest in physical assets.

More information:

Amazon set to start testing Web Database (ComputerWorld)

Amazon takes on Oracle and IBM with SimpleDB (TechCrunch)

Does the recent news imply that cloud computing is the next investment that companies that need to look out for?