Chapter 1. Getting Started with DocumentDB

Until recently, the most common answer to the question "Where do I store my application information?" was in a relational database, obviously. The answer to this simple yet meaningful question is not so straightforward anymore.

NoSQL databases are becoming more and more popular and DocumentDB is one of them. In August 2014, Scott Guthrie officially announced the first preview version of DocumentDB. DocumentDB is a NoSQL database service offered by Microsoft. It is delivered as a managed service on Azure. This means that we no longer have to manage any infrastructure; we can just take it from the tap and pay per use. DocumentDB is a schema-free store, which means that we can store any kind of JSON document inside the store and work with the data as we used to in traditional SQL databases.

In this chapter, we will do the following:

• Learn what DocumentDB is all about
• Look at the data model
• Make a comparison with other non-SQL technologies
• Learn about the pricing model
• Build a console application that connects to a database

This book is aimed at architects, developers, database administrators, and IT professionals who want to learn and understand the breadth of DocumentDB.