Microsoft Surpasses AWS Cloud With Azure Cosmos DB

Irrespective of whether it manages to better AWS Cloud in market and mind share in the near future, Azure should be able to put a better challenge now, as Microsoft made a bunch of cloud related announcements at its BUILD 2017 conference.

Long story short, the Microsoft Azure cloud is starting to look a lot more like the Amazon Web Service cloud — when it comes to database offerings, at least.

Amazon’s status as the top cloud computing service provider was unchallenged in 2016, as the AWS division maintained its 40% market share last year, taking business away from many smaller players in the process.

This streak continued, in the first quarter of this year, too, as sales jumped 43% year-over-year.

Now, though, it is finally facing a much tougher challenge.

Redmond has announced the Azure Cosmos DB, which may actually see AWS playing catchup to this new technology. As Microsoft executive Scott Guthrie detailed this latest arrival in a blog post, it has been seven years in the making:

“Today, we announced Azure Cosmos DB, the first globally distributed, multi-model database service delivering turnkey global distribution with guaranteed uptime and millisecond latency at the 99th percentile. While most database services force you to choose between strong or eventual consistency, Azure Cosmos DB is the only globally distributed database service which offers five well-defined, intuitive consistency choices — so you can select just the right one for your app.”

Microsoft also announced a limited preview of the Azure Database Migration Service, which the Amazon cloud has had since October 2015.

Additionally, the software giant confirmed the availability of new Azure database services for PostgreSQL and MySQL. Again, something that AWS already offers with its Rational Database Service, and even Aurora, a fully managed MySQL compatible relational database offering.

And while media outlets have been quick to label the Cosmos DB as the future of cloud database, the undisputed cloud computing market leader knows that the cloud rivalry has now heated up.

Microsoft is, in simpler terms, taking the game to Amazon.

The question then becomes, when will AWS have something like Cosmos DB to offer its customers?