A company needs a database in which data can be highly available even in the case of local or regional outages.

Flat-file databases store data in a single table or file, making them susceptible to outages since all data resides in one location. If the system hosting the flat-file database encounters a failure, all access to the data is lost, thus failing to provide the high availability needed during local or regional outages.

While cloud databases can offer high availability by leveraging distributed resources, they are not inherently designed for it. The term "cloud" encompasses various architectures and services; without a distributed structure, a cloud database may not guarantee data availability in the face of localized outages, as it may still rely on a central point of failure.

Relational databases organize data into tables and can be highly effective in many contexts, but they typically require a centralized server. This centralization can lead to downtime during outages, as the entire database system may become inaccessible if the server fails, thus not meeting the requirement for high availability.