Amazon Web Services just introduced DynamoDB, a new cloud computing service: a distributed database. The new service will help web services deal with sudden or frequent spikes in demand. Such spikes can tax traditional databases or databases housed within clusters. Quite possibly this service may be geared for smaller companies with successful websites and web products that may find themselves dealing with the "high class" problem of a spike in demand.
This on-demand web-scale distrubted database is a “a fully managed NoSQL database” that relies on solid-state drives, which increase the speed of data transfer--reducing bottlenecks. The service can be scaled up or down according to demand. Amazon deals with all the provisioning and management of the database, which will be very useful for web development companies.