Microsoft is beefing up its database options for Azure in a big way. During the first day of its Build developer conference, Redmond unveiled a new "planet-scale" database platform, new support for open-source databases, and a database migration service. Here's a look at each announcement and what they mean.
Azure Cosmos DB
The biggest database announcement out of Build is the general availability of Cosmos DB. It's a superset of DocumentDB, the NoSQL service Microsoft introduced in 2015. All DocumentDB customers will be migrated to Cosmos DB automatically and at no additional charge.
Microsoft is betting the advanced features found in Cosmos DB can draw in many new customers, however. Here's the short version of what it delivers, courtesy of Microsoft:
It is the first cloud database to natively support a multitude of data models and popular query APIs, is built on a novel database engine capable of ingesting sustained volumes of data and provides blazing-fast queries – all without having to deal with schema or index management. And it is the first cloud database to offer five well-defined consistency models so you can choose just the right one for your app.
Azure Cosmos DB makes global distribution, turnkey. With a single click, you can add/remove any number of Azure regions to your Azure Cosmos DB database, anytime. Azure Cosmos DB will seamlessly replicate your data wherever your users are.
Azure Cosmos DB allows your application to elastically scale throughput and storage on demand, worldwide. You can elastically scale up from 1000s to 100s of millions of requests/sec around the globe, with a single API call and pay only for the throughput (and storage) you need. Azure Cosmos DB is the only cloud database which allows you to scale throughput at both second and minute granularities.
Microsoft is setting the bar high for Cosmos DB's performance, saying it will "guarantee single-digit millisecond latencies at the 99th percentile to your app, anywhere in the world."
It is also guaranteeing high availability globally even in the event of a regional disaster.
Meanwhile, Cosmos DB's flexible consistency model goes well beyond the usual choice between persistent and eventual consistency. The five options give customers a more granular way to tradeoff performance for consistency, depending on a particular application's needs.
Microsoft is putting money behind its claims for Cosmos DB, through SLAs for high-availability, low latency at the 99th percentile, consistency and throughput.
It also claims that on a TCO basis, Cosmos DB can be up to 10 times cheaper to run than competing open source offerings running on-premises or virtual machines, and up to three times less costly than Amazon Web Services' DynamoDB "for high volume workloads."
The Bottom Line: Cosmos DB's capabilities appear to be considerable and already battle-tested by early adopters. Moreover, there are tens of thousands of existing DocumentDB customers who can start experimenting with its additional features immediately, which should spark uptake and momentum. Cosmos DB also gives Microsoft a clear answer to the likes of Google Spanner, its recently introduced global-scale database. While Spanner is a relational store, it makes similarly grand promises about scalability and uptime.
MySQL and PostgreSQL Are Now First-Class Azure Citizens
A less flashy but sure to be popular move from Microsoft is are new managed services MySQL and PostgreSQL databases on Azure. Previously, those who wished to use those platforms had to run them in a virtual machine and manage the stack themselves, or use a third-party service.
Now in preview, both databases will run on Azure's database services fabric, taking advantage of its high availability, scalability, flexibility, security and monitoring features. They will also be integrated with Azure Web Apps from the start. Both will use the community editions of the database.
The Bottom Line: Both MySQL and Postgres remain popular databases, currently ranking in the top five overall, according to the DB-Engines ranking service. It should be noted that DB-Engines bases its scores on factors such as social media and developer forum mentions, job listings, LinkedIn profile data and search engine results, and does not address factors such as the number of installations of a given database. But buzz certainly counts for something, and for that reason alone, Microsoft is wise to add native support for MySQL and Postgres. It's a sure-fire way to draw new workloads to Azure while giving developers more options.
Azure Database Migration Service
Finally, Microsoft showcased a limited preview of a new database migration service aimed at moving on-premises Oracle, MySQL and SQL Server workloads to Azure. Pricing and general availability weren't disclosed.
This can justifiably be seen as a "me-too" announcement in response to Amazon Web Services, which has touted the success of its own database migration tool.
AWS CTO Werner Vogels recently said customers had moved 23,000 databases to AWS through the service, a number that is largely meaningless without context, such as the size and strategic importance of the workloads.
The Bottom Line: Microsoft didn't spend much time on this announcement at Build and it's easy to see why. The success or failure of this migration service will likely depend on cost, and how seamlessly it can transition workloads to Azure. Hence the limited preview, which suggests there remains plenty of tweaking to do along with early adopters.
24/7 Access to Constellation Insights
Subscribe today for unrestricted access to expert analyst views on breaking news.
