<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Gigaom]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[http://gigaom.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[Barb Darrow]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[http://search.gigaom.com/author/barbdarrow/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[Microsoft queues up DocumentDB for broad availability]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<p>Microsoft continues to fill in the check boxes for its Azure cloud. Example: Azure DocumentDB, Microsoft&#8217;s take on NoSQL databases a la Couch or MongoDB, will be generally available April 8, the company <a href="http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2015/03/05/microsoft-azure-enabling-business-transformation-with-updated-search-and-nosql-data-services-encoders-for-media-services-and-more">said Thursday</a>.</p>
<p>The beauty of these document databases is they can ingest JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) formatted information as is &#8212; no need for the mapping process that had to occur to pump them into relational SQL databases. <a href="https://search.gigaom.com/company/amazon/">Amazon</a> Web Services <a href="https://gigaom.com/2014/10/08/amazon-web-services-adds-json-support-to-dynamodb/">added JSON support</a> to its DynamoDB database last last year.</p>
<p><a href="https://search.gigaom.com/company/microsoft/">Microsoft</a> announced <a href="http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/documentdb/">DocumentDB</a> <a href="https://gigaom.com/2014/08/21/microsoft-unveils-documentdb-a-nosql-database-built-for-azure/">in August</a>.</p>
<p>Microsoft, which is trying to kit out Azure as a comfy home to a wide variety of workloads, supports a variety of homegrown and third-party databases including <a href="http://docs.mongodb.org/ecosystem/platforms/windows-azure/">MongoDB</a> and Microsoft SQL Azure and <a href="http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/campaigns/oracle/">Oracle</a>.</p>
<p>Microsoft also said <a href="http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/search/">Azure Search</a>, which works across more than 50 languages, is now available. This &#8220;search-as-a-service&#8221; targets developers who want to add full-text search into their applications.</p>
<p>The company also unveiled a new <a href="http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2015/03/05/introducing-premium-encoding-in-azure-media-services">premium encoder</a> for Azure Media Services.</p>
<p>For a primer on DocumentDB check out the video below.</p>
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