• 2 min read

Azure Cosmos DB Developer experience updates December 2018

Version 3.0 of the .NET SDK is now in preview! We’ve redesigned the object model to use a new “fluent” style API surface, support for streams, and are open source on GitHub. The new SDK also targets .NET Standard 2.0, allowing you to use the SDK in both your .NET Framework 4.6.1+ and .NET Core 2.0+ applications.

The Azure Cosmos DB team is excited to announce new features and improvements for developers:

NET SDK Version 3.0 preview

Version 3.0 of the .NET SDK is now in preview! We’ve redesigned the object model to use a new “fluent” style API surface, added support for streams and other performance improvements, and are open source on GitHub. The new SDK also targets .NET Standard 2.0, allowing you to use the SDK in both your .NET Framework 4.6.1+ and .NET Core 2.0+ applications.

NET SDK Version 3.0 preview

We’re excited to hear your feedback. Read more in the blog post, “Azure Cosmos DB .NET SDK Version 3.0 now in public preview,” for updates in our blog and get started with a tutorial.

New 25x lower entry point for database-level throughput

We’ve lowered the entry point for database-level throughput 25x to just 400 RU/s, down from 10,000 RU/s. With database level throughput, all containers in the database share the throughput of the database. After the first four containers, each additional container requires a minimum of 100 RU/s. Learn more about Cosmos DB level throughput.

Database-level throughput

In addition, when creating a new partitioned container with dedicated throughput, you can now provision throughput starting at 400 RU/s, down from 1000 RU/s. This removes the need to create “Fixed” containers, which we’ve removed from the Portal. As long as a partition key is provided when you create the container, your container can scale as your workload storage and request volume grows.

We’re excited to make it easier to create databases with many small containers, and address one of our top User Voice items.

CORS support

Azure Cosmos DB now supports CORS! Now, using our JavaScript SDK, you can write browser-based apps that talk directly to Azure Cosmos DB, without the need for a proxy. At the account level, you can set the allowed-origins that Azure Cosmos DB will accept requests from, which will apply to all databases and containers in the account. Read more on our blog, “Azure Cosmos DB now supports Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS).”

CORS dashboard

Change Feed support for JavaScript SDK

The Azure Cosmos DB JavaScript SDK now has Change Feed support. With the Change Feed, you can listen to changes on a container, and get an incremental feed of its records they are created or updated. The Change Feed is commonly used in event-sourcing architectures, stream processing, or data movement scenarios. See our samples to get started.

Cassandra API support in Emulator

We’ve added Cassandra API support to the Azure Cosmos DB Emulator. The Azure Cosmos DB Emulator provides a local environment that emulates the Azure Cosmos DB service for development purpose. Now, you can use this against the Cassandra API to develop and test your application locally, without incurring any costs against the Azure Cosmos DB service.

To try it out, install the latest version of the emulator. Start the emulator from an admin command prompt with a flag to enable Cassandra API. We recommend specifying a separate data path to avoid conflicts with the directory used by the emulator in other API modes.

CosmosDB.Emulator.exe /EnableCassandraEndpoint /DataPath=”C:/path/to/directory”

Get started

Try out these these new features and send us your feedback at askcosmosdb@microsoft.com. If you’re new to Azure Cosmos DB, you can try Cosmos DB for free for 30 days.

Stay up-to-date on the latest Azure #CosmosDB news and features by following us on Twitter @AzureCosmosDB. We are really excited to see what you will build with Azure Cosmos DB!