Book Image

Guide to NoSQL with Azure Cosmos DB

By : Gaston C. Hillar, Daron Yöndem
Book Image

Guide to NoSQL with Azure Cosmos DB

By: Gaston C. Hillar, Daron Yöndem

Overview of this book

Cosmos DB is a NoSQL database service included in Azure that is continuously adding new features and has quickly become one of the most innovative services found in Azure, targeting mission-critical applications at a global scale. This book starts off by showing you the main features of Cosmos DB, their supported NoSQL data models and the foundations of its scalable and distributed architecture. You will learn to work with the latest available tools that simplify your tasks with Cosmos DB and reduce development costs, such as the Data Explorer in the Azure portal, Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer, and the Cosmos DB Emulator. Next, move on to working with databases and document collections. We will use the tools to run schema agnostic queries against collections with the Cosmos DB SQL dialect and understand their results. Then, we will create a first version of an application that uses the latest .NET Core SDK to interact with Cosmos DB. Next, we will create a second version of the application that will take advantage of important features that the combination of C# and the .NET Core SDK provides, such as POCOs and LINQ queries. By the end of the book, you will be able to build an application that works with a Cosmos DB NoSQL document database with C#, the .NET Core SDK, LINQ, and JSON.
Table of Contents (13 chapters)
Title Page
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Working with the Azure Cosmos DB Emulator


Sometimes, the Azure credit included in different subscriptions is enough for our development tasks. However, in other cases, we don't want to spend Azure credits or be billed for our development tasks that use Cosmos DB storage and services.

Microsoft provides the Azure Cosmos DB Emulator, which we can install on specific Windows versions, that emulates the Cosmos DB service without working with an Azure subscription or any other Azure service. The Azure Cosmos DB Emulator runs as an application that uses resources in the computer on which it is installed, and therefore makes it possible to perform many Cosmos DB operations and tests without incurring any Azure costs.

Note

At the time I was writing this book, the emulator provided support for the SQL API and the MongoDB API. Other APIs were not available for use in the emulator data explorer. You can read more information about the emulator and download the latest binaries or Windows Docker images...