Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB Reviews

Cosmos is a PaaS, so you don't need to worry about infrastructure and hosting. It has various APIs that allow it to integrate with other solutions. For example, we are using a MongoDB-compatible API for customers, which makes it easier for developers on the team who previously used MongoDB or are accustomed to the old document storage paradigm. 

The API compatibility has room for improvement, particularly integration with MongoDB. You have to connect to a specific flavor of MongoDB. We'd also like a richer query capability in line with the latest Mongo features. That is one thing on our wish list. The current version is good enough for our use case, but it could be improved.

We've been using Cosmos DB for about six to eight months.

Cosmos DB's reliability, performance, and scalability are all good. We can't complain. Azure has management outages, and the management windows that Azure publishes are still too big. They provide a 24 hour period in which maintenance will happen. Smaller, specific windows are easier to manage when you have a production system. Otherwise, it does a good job technically.

The scalability of the Azure platform is a given. It's easy to scale and quickly deploy. The API's richness also helped us. We use Cosmos DB for a public-facing application with upwards of a million users.

I think we have all the scalability that we need, and we like that the system doesn't have outages when it's updating. However, an on-prem version is required for some use cases, and they provide this now. 

Microsoft support is good if you contact a specialist. Getting in touch with the right specialist is crucial for whatever technology you're using on Azure. If you reach the right person, it's a dream, but that can be difficult in some cases can be difficult. You might go through several layers of support before you reach the platform experts.

We haven't used another solution for this particular use case. The product was benchmarked on Azure, so we used Cosmos DB. It wasn't like we were looking at different solutions, and we chose Cosmos.

Setting up the whole landscape took about a week. It doesn't take long. It's a PaaS, so the setup is mostly configuration. It's more like provisioning rather than deployment. You could probably set it up in a day if you wanted to. We set it up with an in-house team. About 15 to 20 people support the solution, but they aren't dedicated to Cosmos DB. They work on lots of things. 

Cosmos DB is a PaaS, so there are no upfront costs for infrastructure. There are only subscriptions you pay for Azure and things like that. But it's a PaaS, so it's a subscription service. The license isn't perpetual, and the cost might seem expensive on its face, but you have to look at the upkeep for infrastructure and what you're saving. 

I rate Cosmos DB eight out of 10. I would recommend it for an appropriate use case. However, you need to be aware of the system's limitations. If you're using the DocumentDB system, it's crucial to plan properly for document structure, etc. You also need to plan for failure to ensure that your system can survive when any node fails. Set up clustering, redundancy, high availability, and so on.

We provide automated solutions to manufacturing plants. 

The solution is user friendly and Microsoft's technical support is good. 

In Microsoft manufacturing, managers really need to know about the product. This market is flooded by other vendors. So putting Microsoft in action in such places looks challenging.

I have been using Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB for four months. 

Microsoft Cosmos is stable. 

It is a scalable solution and twelve hundred users are using the solution. 

The entire POC process and Microsoft's entire page were really smooth. There are no hiccups at all, and the kind of documentation support has really helped to build a competitive customer, so that is good enough.

I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten. 

The technical support team is good. 

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward. Two developers and one architect were enough for the deployment. The maintenance is easy. 

Microsoft provides fair pricing. 

If somebody is really looking to adopt a solution like this, this is the best option to go.

My current title is that of a Solution Sales Architect.

The biggest benefit of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is the general cloud model that Azure gives you. It provides more flexibility from a cost and data perspective. The solution is reasonable. Microsoft gives the best security solutions with zero trust protection.

With Azure, you can start small and grow as you need.

I provide architect solutions on top of Azure. A couple of features that would help me in architectural solutions would be customizable architecture or customizable documentation, which both Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Teams can provide. I can easily pick and choose a couple of architecture and merge them. This would be a very helpful feature for me in my role.

I have had five years of experience working with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB.

This solution is stable. I rarely receive concerns from my clients that they are facing any downtime or that some solutions or configurations are not working.

Azure cloud is very much scalable however, you do need to consider your database. If I am scaling the product, the traffic will increase and the database also has to be optimized in that way. 

My application is static, so it can be scaled to infinity, but the same cannot be done with the database. The database needs to be sufficient to get the load directly. I cannot go ahead and directly deploy a database with another skill functionality as I have to do some manual effort with downtime involved.

From a scalability perspective, the key database has to be optimized in a better way that can support auto-scaling architecture or scalability architecture.

The initial setup of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is straightforward.

Azure is a pay as you go subscription. Each month you utilize the solution and at the end of the month, based upon your utilization, you will get a report and invoice. It depends on the architecture and the services being used, how they are deployed and what the stories are. It is variable.

My general advice to anyone looking to implement Microsoft Azure would be to start small. When you see your application increase or your traffic increase on site, you can slowly scale. 

I would rate the solution a seven out of 10 overall.

For retail, all the backend data, such as merchandise items, is stored in Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB. This data is processed by backend APIs, and the UI can perform displays, printouts, edits, creations, etc.

Cost-wise, it is transparent. It supports traceability. Any activity happening in your Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB can be seen from the Azure portal via log events. If you have some sort of observability, you can centralize logging and create historical insights or virtualization based on the activity. By default, Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB provides all of that on their main portal.

It is responsive when you have a large dataset stored in your Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB. It is no problem. You can quickly scale it. Unlike traditional solutions, you do not have to deal with a separate team managing the database.

Search results have been good. It is a good experience because you can search results via the Azure portal, via a query, or via CLI. You have plenty of options. Aside from that, you can do quick scaling of your Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB whenever you have an issue with the workload, capacity, etc.

Traditional database solutions require back-and-forth coordination between teams which can lead to delays in implementing simple tasks. With Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB running on the cloud, the developer can do a quick query, and the operator can do technical analysis or troubleshooting. It is beneficial overall in terms of operational effectiveness.

Optimization is achieved through indexes. It is pretty similar to other SQL or database solutions. Microsoft Azure provides Data Studio, where you can explore your schema, tweak it, create a backup, and restore existing data within Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB. These tools make your life easier if you do not like working with the CLI.

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is a good solution for distributed application requirements. We can perform multi-modeling. For modern applications, I would recommend Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB. It caters to different types of applications and also provides an API base wherein you can perform automated updates for your Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB resources.

It provides all the common features that other database solutions offer. The difference is that Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is cloud-hosted. You can host it on-prem, but running in the cloud simplifies everything in terms of support and availability.

Overall, it works very well and fits the purpose regardless of the target application. However, by default, there is a threshold to accommodate bulk or large requests. You have to monitor the Request Units. If you need more data for a particular query, you need to increase the Request Units.

I have only used the technology for three to four months.

It depends on how you configure your Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB. If you are using it as a standalone service, you are unlikely to gain the full benefits of having Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB running on the cloud. However, if you consider scale sets and scalability, for example, you can achieve higher stability.

With Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, we created an availability zone to ensure that there is a replica of the primary Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB instance. If the primary goes down, there is a secondary database that they can use for the application. The backend application gets repointed to the secondary instance.

I do not see any problem with the latency. Connecting from your local client like Azure Data Studio to your Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB can take time, but if you are going to connect an application to the database in the same region, there is no latency at all.

It is highly scalable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.

We can quickly scale using Terraform. We can perform horizontal and vertical scaling with Terraform and apply it. It will automatically reflect in our Azure environment.

Excellent support always comes from Microsoft. If you have a problem with different services, you just raise a ticket, and someone will reach out to you. I can elevate the severity depending on the criticality of your issues and the impact.

Positive

We did not use any other solution previously because this is a new project for modernizing the merchandising area.

The setup is easy, especially in the cloud, so I would rate it a nine out of ten for the ease.

All our infrastructure layers are being controlled by Terraform. If we want to set up a new environment, it can be done within a day for not only Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB but also all resources required for an end-to-end application flow.

You can do it yourself. They have good documentation, which is easy to follow.

You can get an ROI in a year, provided you deploy it properly with the right baseline forecasted plan in terms of resource sizing. There are many factors when it comes to ROI, such as how quickly you can onboard your application and consume the backend Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB. For those new to the cloud, it might be hard to get the ROI quickly, but those with existing resources in the cloud can achieve their ROI in the short term.

It can save a lot if you perform regular monitoring. If you have a monitoring team for checking the overall utilization of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB resources, it will save a lot of cost. You can react quickly and trim down the specs, memory, RAM, storage size, etc. It can save about 20% of the costs.

Its cost is transparent. Pricing depends on the transaction and data size, but overall, it is cheaper compared to hosting it on your corporate network due to other factors like power consumption. 

Current pricing is fine, and you can scale it afterward. You can start with a small size and scale eventually. That is a benefit of having Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB on the cloud.

It was the primary platform choice of the client at the time.

You can quickly learn Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB if you are familiar with how databases work.

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers all you need for a particular database solution. It is better if you can host it in the cloud, applying security controls like data at rest and data in transit. You must ensure Microsoft Azure cloud is only accessible in a secure manner.

Scalability-wise, you can quickly scale your Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, unlike on-premises, where you must request and procure additional resources. There is no such need; you can use infrastructure as code like Terraform and adjust the resource specs whenever you like. There are no capacity and workload concerns.

I would rate Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB a nine out of ten.

I use the product for storing information related to our automation.

The product is simple to use. It is a NoSQL database. It is easy to commission the environment and use it.

It is not as easy to use as DynamoDB. The product always shows JSON-based documents. However, DynamoDB shows a table-based document. The documentation must be improved.

I used the solution a couple of months ago.

The tool’s stability is very good. I rate the stability a ten out of ten.

The tool is highly scalable. I rate the scalability a ten out of ten. We have more than 1000 users.

I used DynamoDB in my previous organization.

The initial setup is easy. The deployment could be completed within minutes.

The tool is not expensive. It is good for small use cases.

Cosmos DB is a good option if someone is looking for a NoSQL database. Overall, I rate the product a nine out of ten.

The product has a lot of useful features that are there and ready to use, it's also very easy to use.

There are features that are ADF only or ADB only, so it would be good to see more cross-compatibility between the two. The solution is also more expensive than the alternatives. 

I have been using the solution for over two and a half years.

The solution is stable.

Scalability is very good, you can scale up or down according to your requirements.

I have to say technical support is not very good as it takes too long. Sometimes it can take them two or three days to respond to your ticket.  

The setup for this solution isn't complex.

The cost very much depends on the task and on how much data is being processed and transferred.

The cost is the biggest limitation of this solution. I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

We have a lot of use cases like for the web API backend where we have most of the processing jobs. It supports mobile, browser, and tablet. We have a single face application that interacts with the users and customers. It's backend and frontend architecture. For middleware, we use Kafka integration. We have PowerBI for reporting. 

I like the scalability. There aren't any constraints for posting in the geolocation. I also like the SQL architecture. 

The query is a little complex. SQL server should have more options. But the query should be better. 

The setup takes a bit of time but once it's done, it goes well. Backend developers need a bit of time to do the setup. 

I have been using DocumentDB for a little over a year. You can use the libraries that are available in the framework and connect to DocumentDB for your operation. 

It is stable but since we have multiple locations, if one point goes down, we can access another location easily. Most of the effort goes into the script and we use keywords to secure the accessibility and then we set up the encryption. Configuration takes time. We do it without self-script. If you do it manually, it is quite difficult but script does it in a better manner. 

We use our own documentation as our resource. Azure doesn't have many problems that we need to contact support except for developers who struggle to learn about SQL. They need training and to read up on the literature. 

We are satisfied with their support. 

It takes time to set up and understand. Since Azure has its own table, it's not so flexible. 

Before implementing, know now how to use DocumentDB. Understand your use case. From an architecture perspective, we have a use case where we wanted to use more SQ and we used DocumentDB as the first consideration. There isn't a better SQL than DocumentDB available. Cloud provides this type of platform.

The automatic performance is also very good. We did research on the internet and decided to go with DocumentDB. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten. Not a ten because there is what to be done for improvement. In the future, it should be simplified for developers so that it's not a hassle for them. There aren't many resources for SQL and DocumentDB. It may take time for more documentation to come out. 

Cosmos DB is a non-relational, NoSQL database. We are a solution provider and we implement this product for our clients. It is used for integrating and managing unstructured data such as videos, pictures, and other big objects that you cannot include in a standard database tablet. It is made for these kinds of activities.

Some of our customers include banks, where together with their main relational database, it provides a place for keeping track of unstructured data. The relational database is used to store the regular data, whereas Cosmos DB stores what is unstructured.

I also use this product for my own purposes.

Cosmos DB is stable and easy to use.

Better documentation on how to integrate with other components would be helpful because I was struggling with this. For example, I had trouble finding information on how to integrate with other Microsoft components. Also, consider a situation where you want to use Cosmos DB to manage the uploading of data to your website. Information on how to do things like this should be readily available.

I have been using Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB for less than a month.

Cloud-based solutions like Cosmos DB are quite stable.

This is a scalable product. When I originally used it on the cloud, Microsoft Azure, I tried changing a lot of things such as increasing the memory to see how it performed. The response was quite good. 

Technical support is good and they are responsive.

Prior to Cosmos DB, was using MySQL, but it isn't a non-relational database.

The initial setup is straightforward. It was complete in about five minutes.

I deployed it myself.

There is a licensing fee.

This is a good product and I recommend it, especially in cases where people want to keep their information outside of the organization and on the cloud.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.