Exploring Azure Cosmos DB: A Guide to Scalable NoSQL Database Solutions

Erwin Schleier
4 min readMay 8, 2024

Azure Cosmos DB is Microsoft’s fully managed NoSQL and relational database service tailored for high-performance, scalable applications. With support for six database APIs — including NoSQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Apache Cassandra, Table, and Apache Gremlin — Cosmos DB is architected to offer global scalability and massive throughput through efficient partitioning and replication. This guide provides a deeper understanding of these mechanisms and how they contribute to the scalability and performance of your database solutions.

Understanding Partitioning in Cosmos DB

Logical vs. Physical Partitioning:

  1. Logical Partitioning:
  • What It Is: Consists of a set of items that share the same partition key.
  • Why It Matters: The choice of a partition key is crucial as it affects data distribution across partitions. An optimal partition key ensures data is evenly spread, preventing any single partition from becoming a bottleneck — known as a “hot spot.”
  • Role in Cosmos DB: Enables Cosmos DB to manage and scale data transparently based on the partition key.

2. Physical Partitioning:

  • What It Is: These are the actual hardware or storage units…

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