Couchbase this week added a Capella Columnar database to its database-as-as-service (DBaaS) portfolio that will initially be made available on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud.
In addition, Couchbase has made generally available an instance of Couchbase Mobile, am offering based on its Couchbase Lite document database, that includes vector search capabilities.
Finally, Couchbase is also now making available a free tier that developers can use to learn how to build applications that run on the Capella DBaaS platform managed by Couchbase.
Matt McDonough, senior vice president of product and partners for Couchbase, said collectively these additions to the portfolio make it simpler to run data intensive applications in the cloud using a columnar database while also running mobile applications that require access to a document database embedded within a mobile device.
That approach provides the best of both worlds for analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) applications. For example, a document database with local vector search capabilities enables an inference engine deployed on that device to process and analyze data, thereby potentially providing a better near real-time experience versus always having to invoke a remote cloud service via an application programming interface (API), noted McDonough.
At the same time, there are data intensive applications that require the unique capabilities of a columnar database hosted in the cloud, he added.
Given the increased volume and variety of data that IT organizations are trying to provide access to, it’s all but inevitable there will be a need for multiple types of databases that are optimized for specific use cases. A document database, for example, enables data based on a JavaScript object notation (JSON) file to access vector data, while a columnar database is typically better suited for running analytics workloads, compared to a relational database that’s typically used in processing transactions.
The challenge IT teams face is weaving all those platforms into a fabric that application developers can easily invoke as needed. In some instances, an IT team might look to manage multiple databases as a service themselves, but Couchbase alternatively is making a case for a Capella DBaaS that offloads those tasks to what is essentially a managed service.
There is, of course, no shortage of providers of managed database services to choose from but, in general, many application developers today prefer to at least initially build their applications using a document database, because it doesn’t require any help from a database administrator or IT operations team to set up. The issue that eventually arises is that once an application is deployed in a production environment many developers discover maintaining a database takes time away from writing code. That’s when they typically look for a DBA or IT operations team to take on that challenge.
As that application continues to evolve, however, there may come a day when it no longer makes sense to run it on a document database or, just as commonly, that application running on a document database may need to be augmented by remote services running on, for example, a columnar database.
Regardless of how IT teams come to that decision, the one thing that is clear is the number of potential databases and formats an organization needs to master only continues to expand.
