Creating an Account

It's been common, if inconsistently applied, knowledge for many years that relational databases are a less-than-ideal fit for some types of software problems. Indeed, entire categories of software development tooling, such as object-relational mappers (ORMs), exists to bridge the gap between highly normalized relational data and in-memory, object-oriented representations. In practice, ORMs can create as much complexity as they alleviate, so developers began looking at the relational database itself as ripe for potential disruption.

Thus came the rise of NoSQL and databases that eschew the traditional rows/columns/tables/foreign keys metaphor for other choices like JSON document stores, graph databases that represent data and relationships as nodes with connecting edges, key/value stores that act as a glorified hashtable, and others. The wide range of options meant you could choose the right tool for your particular needs, instead of trying to squeeze a relational database square peg into your application's round hole. Solutions like MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis, and Neo4j rose to prominence and became de facto industry standards for developers interested in leveraging the power and flexibility NoSQL.

While NoSQL was a boon to software developer productivity, the initial product offerings did little to alleviate the administrative burden of managing your database. Server provisioning, backups, data security at-rest and in-transit... all these challenges (and many more) remained as developers adopted NoSQL in greater numbers. Fortunately for them and all of us, the rise of the cloud and managed database service offerings like Azure DocumentDB brought us the best of both worlds: fast, flexible, infinitely-scalable NoSQL with most of the administrative headaches assumed by a dedicated team of experts from Microsoft. You focus on your data and your application, and rely on a 99.99% SLA for the rest!

In this "Introduction to Azure DocumentDB" course, you’ll learn how to use Azure DocumentDB (DocDB) in your applications. You'll create DocDB accounts, databases, and collections. You'll perform ad-hoc and application-based queries, and see how features like stored procedures and MongoDB protocol support can help you. You'll also learn about ideal DocDB use cases and the pricing model. By the end of this course, you’ll have a solid foundation to continue exploring NoSQL and DocumentDB.

An Introduction to Azure DocumentDB: What You'll Learn

Lecture	What you'll learn
Intro	What to expect from this course
DocumentDB Overview	A high-level overview of the DocumentDB feature set
Overview of Managing DocumentDB	A discussion of DocumentDB features for managing resources, data, scalability, configuration, and so on
Creating an Account	Creating a top-level DocDB account in the Azure portal
Creating a Collection	Creating and configuring a DocDB collection in the Azure portal
Importing Data	Discussion and demonstration of moving data into a DocDB collection
Overview of Developing with DocumentDB	A discussion of DocumentDB features from a development point of view
SQL Queries	How to author queries in the Azure portal
Programming with DocumentDB	Reading and writing data in code, using the .NET SDK
Stored Procedures	Authoring DocDB stored procedures and executing them using the DocDB REST API
MongoDB Protocol Support	Configuring and using DocDB's MongoDB protocol support
Use Cases	A brief discussion of scenarios well-suited for DocDB use
Pricing	A review of the DocDB pricing model, and discussion of cost estimation and Total Cost of Ownership
Ecosystem Integration	A short review of DocDB integration with other Azure services
Summary	Course wrap up

If you have thoughts or suggestions for this course, please contact Cloud Academy at support@cloudacademy.com.