Azure DocumentDB – A Deep Dive
Sai Sankar
My Previous blog, Reboot with Azure DocumentDB: A NoSQL database on thecloud was the overview of Azure DocumentDB, while in this blog, I will move further deep down to analyze what significant features make DocumentDB a powerful database.
Azure DocumentDB- A highly scalable NoSQL document database-as-a-service
Azure DocumentDB offers rich query and transactional processing over schema-free data. It helps in delivering configurable and reliable performance and enables rapid development through a self-managed platform, powered by Azure. DocumentDB is undeniably the right solution for the web and mobile applications when predictable throughput, low latency, and flexible query are vital.
What makes us love Azure DocumentDB?
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)
DocumentDB exists among a plethora of other services in Azure. That suggests, by design, DocumentDB is PaaS. Because it is cloud-based, it refrains you from the hassle of managing virtual machines. It is completely managed by Azure, with no need to manage the underlying resources and also the ability to use Azure’s impressive scalability at will. DocumentDB is hosted entirely on SSDs and is blazingly fast, with Azure reporting a 1-2ms call completion when working within the same Azure region.
Splendidly fast, planet-scale NoSQL
DocumentDB, NoSQL supports querying of documents using a traditional, SQL-like, query language which includes hierarchical querying and the ability to execute JavaScript. Users can take the full advantage of SQL and JavaScript over the document and key-value data without any turmoil of on-premises or virtual machine-based cloud database options.
Amazing Scalability & High Availability
DocumentDB is architected with high availability and extensibility and emphasizes on performance. It has been used to power high-scale production services at Microsoft like the User Data Store that powers the MSN suite of web and mobile apps. Users can achieve near-infinite scaling (in terms of storage and throughput) for your DocumentDB application by horizontally partitioning your data – a concept, which is commonly referred as sharding.
A Perfect JavaScript Integration
DocumentDB treasures JavaScript and is carefully designed from the ground up to make it a first-class citizen. This clearly indicates that JavaScript developers can get more productive with DocumentDB and can manipulate their data.
JSON & Native RESTful API
DocumentDB reuses existing languages, protocols and formats. It makes use of JSON to exhibit documents, which are originally derived from the Javascript language and is a standard for data interchange nowadays. It also brings a native REST interface over HTTP.
Easy Replication of data globally
With DocumentDB, you can easily build apps at planet scale without any hassle of complex, multiple data center configurations. Designed as a globally distributed database system, DocumentDB can automatically replicate all of your data to any number of regions worldwide. Your apps can now serve the data from a region closest to your users with fast and uninterrupted access.
Consistency Choices
DocumentDB leverages a write-optimized, latch-free database engine designed for high-performance. Instead of offering two extreme choices between strong and eventual consistencies, DocumentDB offers four precise consistency levels—strong, bounded staleness, session and eventual—for an intuitive programming model with low latency and with 99.99 percent availability in the face of local and regional failures.
Azure DocumentDB – A Road Ahead
Azure’s DocumentDB comes with a unique set of features that make Microsoft has time and again proven its prowess in the cloud infrastructure market.
Recently, Affinio, an advanced marketing intelligence platform that enables brands to understand their users in a deeper and richer level recently switched from AWS to Azure DocumentDB to harness social data at scale. While relatively a new product, it has undergone many updates and will continue to evolve.
