Microsoft Cosmos DB May Displace AWS Databases

Remember Cosmos DB? The database that Microsoft launched with appropriate fanfare last year? Well, there is talk that it is well on track to display AWS cloud database, so successful has been its arrival.

Freshen up your memory here, in case details on this remarkable new technology are hazy.

But basically, Cosmos DB offers an all-in-one approach to be what developers really want. As opposed to, shall we say, an array of specific tools. Specific tools like AWS DynamoDB, RedShift, and Aurora are, for instance.

As this comprehensive ranking from DB Engines reveals, Cosmos DB has now jumped 27 places, going from 58 to 31 in the list.

The chart:

It appears that a very different approach to data has emerged across competing cloud vendors. While AWS has introduced a range of powerful options for familiar data needs, Microsoft is heading in the opposite direction.

Amazon may have Redshift for data warehousing, while Aurora/RDS for traditional workloads, and AWS DynamoDB for NoSQL, the Redmond based technology giant is going for a one size fits all approach to data.

And it seems to be catching fire!

Cosmos DB has outpaced every other cloud database contender, surpassing both Google BigQuery and Amazon Redshift — both of which have been on the market before it. And although it has a long way to go to catch up to DynamoDB, or even Azure SQL Database, it may if growth keeps up.

That’s as impressive as it is remarkable.

The reason for this success is rooted in the fact that Microsoft is offering cloud users multiple consistency models in the same database, meaning the choice of model can be a function of the workload rather than the product.

That’s huge, simply put.

This approach of not offering a particular kind of database, but a universal backend for different kind of databases puts Microsoft in an excellent position to even include future styles of databases that may not have been invented yet.

It also lets developers dig deep into Cosmos DB for a wide array of application requirements, as opposed to learning point solutions for different application needs.

This general-purpose approach was a risk that the company took with Cosmos DB.

And it appears to be paying off rather well.

2018 could well be the year where cloud databases come squarely into the picture, what with Oracle also doing all it could to court customers in its fight with Amazon Web Services. This stunning success of the Cosmos DB practically sets up a classic battle between the three cloud and enterprise giants.

A battle that’s not to be missed.