Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB Reviews

It has not been a direct approach for me because all of my enterprise-level applications are deployed in MongoDB. At some point, we usually face issues where we need multi-directional and different contexts to connect with the database. Sometimes we use SQL and need to retrieve data from the database. If using a typical MongoDB, this is not possible. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB has bidirectional support for cross-platform connections, so we don't need to recreate our entire database structure in our application. We can work with the MongoDB driver and interact with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB. The applications under my portfolio currently rely on that, mostly indirectly. We created the models, deployed our data, migrated it, and are using it heavily in Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB. 

Recently, we are building an AI-powered application where we heavily rely on Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB to bring data from ServiceNow, SAP, Salesforce, Cisco, and other customers we have at our organization. Reading and inserting data into Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is a very smooth process.

Its scalability is great. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB offers auto-scaling both horizontally and vertically. We haven't faced any issues.

For the third-party driver support they are currently providing, they need to ensure it stays up to date with the market throughout development. If MongoDB updates a particular feature in their drivers, we as developers expect that service and support to be available in Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB as quickly as possible in production.

Its scalability is good and depends on the traffic, with auto-scaling functionality ensuring we don't need to worry about database crashes or data loss during insertion. These problems were common when deploying our data on-premises. With Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, we have overcome those struggles and are now operating smoothly.

It depends on the application. In some cases, we use Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB directly with Azure Functions to store customer details and manage the customer onboarding process through our enterprise applications. In several instances, operations happen directly with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB.

For legacy applications built on MongoDB that need to transition to Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, we take a different approach. If a company is migrating from on-premises systems to the cloud—whether it’s Microsoft Azure or AWS—sometimes it’s necessary to adopt different tools for the billing process and other infrastructural needs. In such cases, we may choose to use Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB to avoid having to restructure our entire legacy application. In these situations, we utilize MongoDB and its drivers as a mediator. These drivers interact with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB to perform the necessary operations within the application.

On another note, when using Azure Functions, we typically handle cases such as creating, updating, or retrieving customer details. This process directly connects Azure Functions to Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB. Currently, we are managing these two different patterns effectively.

If you are an engineer with good experience in microservices and the Azure platform services, it's a one-day setup process, based on requirements. If you are new to the entire Azure platform and services, it can be a bottleneck. It takes time to understand the configurations and related aspects. If you're new, there is a learning curve. You need to understand which version you're using, what features are supported fully or partially, and which features are not supported. For example, when using MongoDB drivers to interact with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, understanding which version (4.1, 4.2, or 4.3) you're using and what features are supported by Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB for that particular version is important. Understanding query performance improvements based on supported features is crucial. For newcomers, it might take several days to understand and review documentation. For mid-level engineers with two or three years of experience, it's a straightforward, one-day process.

Pricing is a complex process at the enterprise level. While I'm not handling the pricing directly, through stakeholder meetings and conversations, we understood that having everything in a single platform with billing up and running for all required application services is beneficial. Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB comes into a single billing system for gold or silver partners, though I'm not familiar with specific company policies and terms and conditions as I'm not an infrastructure specialist.

I would rate Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB an eight out of ten.

We are streaming some data from Azure Stream Analytics, which will be stored in Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB. Our application will be taken from Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB.

The solution's most valuable feature is its global distribution. We work globally and currently have Azure operating in fire regions. From a global distribution perspective, Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is good and easy to handle. Since Microsoft handles the solution's main operation, we don't have many headaches regarding its operation.

The solution’s pricing could be improved.

I have been using Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB for more than 2 years.

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is a stable solution.

I got instant technical support from Microsoft during an outage issue.

Positive

We use Terraform scripts for the initial setup of the solution, which doesn't take much time.

We implemented the solution through an in-house team. We select which region to host Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB based on the resource group. We use Terraform scripts in the deployment process. We create a database and a document inside the database.

The solution is pretty good in terms of support, but we have some pricing issues with it. We are currently evaluating MongoDB and Apache Cassandra. Apart from the pricing, we didn't face any issues with the solution. We once faced an outage issue with Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB because some back-end updates from Microsoft changed the settings.

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is a cloud-based solution. Based on our experience, the solution is pretty good because we operate in multiple regions. There will be a lot of machines sending IoT data, dashboards, and alarm messages. Customers need to be updated simultaneously, which should not take much time. The solution's processing is pretty good.

I would recommend the solution to other users. The solution's usage is pretty good, but users should be careful about the IO threshold value, which is a little bit high.

Overall, I rate the solution eight and a half out of ten.

At the end of the day, Cosmos DB is a database. It is a wrapper over different APIs.

We use Cosmos DB both internally and with our customers. Our internal use is quite extensive. The usage with our customers depends on whether it is an approved technology within their ecosystem.

Because Cosmos DB uses multiple APIs, it is the go-to database for us internally.

Cosmos DB makes life easier because if we want to use Mongo-type data, or Cassandra-type data, or maybe even just a simple cable storage-type data, then graph, there are multiple ways to do this. With Cosmos DB, we can put together a holistic solution when it comes to Azure security policies, Azure Monitor, and access control.

By design, Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB provides multiple APIs. You have to decide where to write to. Will you write to Excel, Word, PPT, or OneNote? You have to do the homework properly. If there is no tool, then there will be no provision, then there is no database.

I would like to see Cosmos DB introduce a feature that would convert machine language to human-readable queries. For example, if we want to generate a simple diagram that shows the relationship between devices and how frequently have they failed at various locations, we have to consider that the IoT data that is put into Cosmos DB, called byte codes, is not readable to humans. This is a machine language type of data. So when we push that type of data it looks like gibberish, because it is not meant for us, meaning we can't write a normal query. We have been asking for years for them to work with the IoT partner to provide a feature to convert the machine language to readable human queries.

I have been using Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB for three years.

The solution is stable. I would give it a five out of five for reliability.

The architectural decisions will tell you how the scaling will happen. 

Scalability is based on the requirements that are set. Configuration decisions can be implemented pretty fast, so the solution scales well. We are predominantly in the US and India, so it is easy to decide which geographies we need to have and which data we need to synchronize. 

For some of our customers, there are data residency rules like the UAE for example, where patient data must stay within the UAE, making it only one geography. When this is the case, we go for multiple replicas. 

Internally, we have more than 150 developers who use Cosmos DB. Overall, the scalability of the solution is a five out of five.

Product support is pretty good. They have a very good roadmap and the team provides regular patches and regular service updates, and they have a very good release plan.

Microsoft's technical support is good, I rate it a five out of five.

Positive

The initial setup depends on the type of setup you require. You have to design it properly. The architects need to do some homework to ensure the purpose and the requirements are clear. There are many design decisions that must be made first. Once those decisions are made, the initial setup is quite easy. 

Deployment of the solution was completed within a week.

Overall, I would give the solution a four out of five for ease of setup.

The deployment of Cosmos DB was completed internally, we managed it ourselves.

The cost is intricate, the calculator is complex because the cloud is all about counting every penny. It may look like small numbers, $0.001 per GB per day, but when we are talking of terabytes of data per day and the numbers will stack up. One month, we had over 500 terabytes. That's why you need a database expert to design it carefully and spend ample time number crunching. If done properly, the ROI will be good.

I would rate Cosmos DB a four out of five in terms of ROI.

Cosmos DB is expensive compared to any virtual machine based on conventional RDBMS like MySQL or PostgreSQL. The reason it is expensive is that it is scalable, reliable and there is no latency. So while Cosmos DB is considered expensive, what a lot of people miss is that the cost includes reliability, scalability, and responsiveness.

Cost also depends on the number of databases, number of replica locations, synchronization, number of queries per minute, and storage. Every client will have a different usage pattern. 

Overall, I would rate Cosmos DB a three out of five in terms of affordability. It is easy to over-provision, and it is easy to under-provision the solution.

Prior to choosing Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB, we did try other tools extensively. Because we have servers, we tried MongoDB, SQL Server, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. We settled on Cosmos DB internally because we didn't want to go for machines and trojaning. We wanted to adopt a platform as a service.  

Cost also ended up being a driving factor.

Overall, I would rate Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB a 10 out of 10.

We have a massive quantity of data that we need to maintain, and we can't put it in a relational database since we need all of the data and want it to be queried quickly.

We maintain it in non-relational databases such as Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB.

It's not a specific feature that I value, but the scalability of this system is the most impressive aspect.

The UI should be improved since if you provide the option to query directly when signing into the Azure portal, it makes no sense if you have such a poor UI for querying that you can't even feed the reports correctly. 

It should offer a simple user interface for querying Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB.

I have been using Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB for a long time, almost forever.

We are always working with the latest version.

It's fairly stable. I have no complaints about the stability of Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB.

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB is fully scalable.

Users do not connect to Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB directly. Our APIs connect to Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB and are then used by the front end. 

Estimating the number of users is impossible.

Because our complete setup is in Microsoft, we have access to the most premium Microsoft assistance, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We have never had a problem with technical support.

The initial setup is straightforward.

The RU's use case determines our license fees. It fluctuates based on how many RUs we have. It's not a fixed-line.

Because our whole solution was hosted on Azure, this was the default option for us. We didn't look into any other possibilities.

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it.

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

We normally use Cosmos DB for data storage.

There are a lot of security features that can be integrated with Cosmos DB. The solution is easy to use, and it is also easy to integrate with several things for database use cases.

I would like the speed of transferring data to be improved.

I’ve been using it for two to three years, and I’m working on the latest version.

The solution is stable.

The solution is very scalable. We have more than 1,000 users in our company.

The initial setup is straightforward. We deploy Cosmos DB once or twice a quarter. We have three or four teams handling deployment and maintenance, which is about 38 members.

We implement the solution in-house.

We are receiving an ROI with this solution.

Cost isn’t a big hurdle for us right now. The solution is not costly.

I recommend Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB to anyone who wants to use it. If you are using Azure Stack, it is a good solution to use

Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB can be used for various purposes. The query language used for Cosmos DB is very similar to SQL, which gives it an advantage. It's a globally distributed multi-model database service, meaning it supports multiple data models, including documents, key-value pairs, graphs, and time series data models.

It's highly scalable and supports consistency, security, and multiple security options, such as REST and transit encryption. It also provides automatic support for these options. These are some top-level benefits of using Cosmos DB, making it a highly versatile and useful tool.

The multi-model database is the most valuable feature. 

One thing that concerns me is the cost, especially for smaller workloads. Cosmos DB is a little more expensive than other database services, particularly if you have tight-traffic models. However, it does have a few advantages, such as being a multi-model database. The biggest problem is the learning curve and other database services like RDS. 

Additionally, advanced analytics capabilities like real-time analytics and machine learning are not embedded in Cosmos DB. Vendor lock-in is a big concern. Cosmos DB is a proprietary database service offered by Microsoft that might not be compatible with other databases. 

I have been using this solution for three years. I am using the latest version.

From a stability perspective, it's a pretty robust solution designed to offer high availability and fault tolerance. It provides multiple levels of redundancy and automatic failover to ensure data availability and reliability. 

It is a scalable solution and has built-in backup and recovery capabilities. We developed it for one of our clients with around 20-25 users.

When compared to other cloud platforms like GCP and AWS, I think Microsoft needs to work on its tech support.

There is some learning curve associated with this software. It becomes relatively easy to implement if you have an expert to work with. 

The deployment process and maintenance depend on the size of the product and what you're trying to migrate. Generally, one cloud solution architect and one big data developer with Azure experience should be sufficient.

We could see an ROI. The whole idea of migrating to the cloud was for a better ROI, and we can see that now that the customer has moved to the cloud.

As your data grows, the licensing cost can be expensive.

If your existing infrastructure already uses Microsoft services or is more of a Microsoft-dependent solution, it's best to be on Microsoft Azure cloud. This is because it integrates very well, and there is a smooth integration with other Microsoft products that are already running on our products. 

You can also leverage some of your existing licenses, saving you a lot of costs when you move to the cloud. That's one solution I would suggest for anyone who is moving from on-premise to the cloud. 

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

We use different Azure services in the development of our solutions. Some of the services we use are Azure Cognitive Services, ADB2C, and SignalR.

For most of the solutions, we use a mixture of Azure SQL Database and Cosmos DB. We use Cosmos DB when the data size is huge, and we need to scale.

Currently, only two people in my organization are working on this solution: one developer and myself. In the future, I think once the system gets deployed, we will have thousands of users. 

Cosmos DB solves certain problems that relational databases cannot handle. It's a multimodal NoSQL database, and it's very scalable. One of the nice features is the ability to auto-scale, plus Cosmos DB's API is easy to use. 

I hope they improve the service. Before last year, improvements on Cosmos DB were very slow. I didn't see many changes in the functionality.

I have been using this solution for four years.

I would rate the stability as nine out of ten.

It's very scalable and fast.

I had developer support with Microsoft Azure. I faced a problem a few years ago, and they helped me solve it.

Positive

It's very easy to set up Cosmos DB. First, you decide what type of API to use, like SQL, Graph, etc., or if you want support for MongoDB or Cassandra APIs. I usually use SQL API. Once you choose the type of API, you create an account and a database. Then you create containers, and you can easily write queries.

I believe there will be a return on investment because using cloud solutions will remove all capital expenses. Cosmos DB's auto-scaling options minimize the cost. Choosing "pay as you go" services cuts costs especially when users are not using the system.

I hope Microsoft lowers the cost further.

We evaluated MongoDB and Cassandra, 

I would rate this solution as eight out of ten.

The APIs are improving and are easy to use. It is easy to set up a new database, and the auto scalability and support for different models are good features.

We mostly use it for NoSQL use cases. We use it for web applications, mobile applications, and social applications in the financial sector.

It is deployed on-premises and on the cloud, and we are using its latest version but not the one in the public review.

Its wide support to the ecosystem is valuable. We can use this database with a lot of use cases, and that's one of the reasons why we prefer it. We have a lot of vendors, databases, and use cases, and wherever possible, we are trying to standardize databases. It is also secure.

At this stage, we would like more enterprise support. We use MongoDB a lot, and we're trying to get rid of MongoDB. So, I would like to see more features in the Cosmos DB API for MongoDB space.

I have been using this solution for almost two years.

It is stable. It has 99.999% availability, and it is backed by SLAs.

We have thousands of users.

We use the cloud version and the on-prem version. We have our on-prem database engineering team. For the cloud, we are okay with their support.

We use MongoDB a lot, and we're trying to get rid of MongoDB.

It is easy to install. I tried it in a testing environment, and it was easy. Database experts should be able to do it easily.

For the cloud, we don't pay for the license, but for the on-prem versions, we do pay.

I would rate Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB a nine out of 10.