Azure Cosmos DB Blog
The latest news, updates and technical insights from the Azure Cosmos DB team
Latest posts
Record Scanner for vinyl collectors cuts costs with Azure Cosmos DB vector search
by Artur Drozdz, Founder of Record Scanner (recordscanner.com) If you’re like me, there’s at least one room in your home with an entire cabinet dedicated to your growing vinyl collection. At this point, you’ve probably heard that vinyl is making a comeback, it’s not just vintage anymore. In fact, after hitting a low during the 90s and 2000s, sales of records grew by 10 percent in 2024, largely driven by Gen Z-ers. About seven years ago, I looked at my collection and decided it was time to finally organize it. I went searching for an app to help me catalog my treasures, but the solutions I found were not eas...
🚀 Introducing the New VS Code Extension for Azure Cosmos DB
We’re excited to share that the Azure Databases extension for Visual Studio Code is now officially rebranded as the Azure Cosmos DB extension! 🎯 Why the Change? This rebranding is part of our effort to provide dedicated, streamlined tooling for each Azure database service. Similar to our extensions for MongoDB and PostgreSQL, the new Cosmos DB extension is now focused exclusively on Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL, giving you a faster, simpler, and more optimized developer experience. ✨ What’s in for Azure Cosmos DB for NOSQL? 💡Good news: If you’re already using Cosmos DB NoSQL, you don’t need to do a...
Introducing the Azure Cosmos DB Account Overview Hub
A Simpler Way to Navigate, Learn, and Optimize your Azure Cosmos DB Account within the Azure Portal. Whether you are just getting started with Azure Cosmos DB or managing a production workload, finding the right tools and guidance in the Azure portal should be simple. The new Cosmos DB Account Overview Hub makes that possible. It brings together setup help, data access, monitoring tools, learning resources, and recommendations, all in one central, easy-to-navigate view. Try it out by navigating to your Azure Cosmos DB account, then navigate to the left navigation pane and select Overview. What You will...
Secure Your Connections with Entra ID Support in the DocumentDB VS Code Extension
Today, we're thrilled to announce a major update to the DocumentDB for VS Code extension that will make life easier for enterprise developers. With version 0.3, you can now connect to your Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB (vCore) clusters using Microsoft Entra ID authentication. For many organizations, using a central identity provider is a top security priority. Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) provides a secure, passwordless authentication method that helps you move away from managing connection strings with secrets. This update brings that modern security standard directly into your VS Code workflow so you can conn...
Everyone is talkin’ bout vibes
Leading up to Microsoft Ignite, I wanted to pressure-test something the community keeps talking about: vibe coding. It’s a style of AI-assisted development where you describe outcomes in natural language and your assistant does most of the scaffolding, refactoring, and glue. You keep momentum by talking through the work, and you only drop to raw code when you need to tighten the screws. If you’ve ever written music, the metaphor fits: you’re chasing a riff, not over-theorizing scales. A writing partner sits beside you, nudging phrasing, trimming bars, and pushing you through the bridge. After a few loops, you’ve...
Data encryption with customer-managed key (CMK) for Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB vCore
Built-in security for every configuration Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB vCore is designed with security as a foundational principle. Regardless of how your cluster is configured—whether it's a single-node deployment or a multi-shard architecture—your data is always encrypted at rest using the AES-256 cipher, one of the most trusted and widely adopted encryption standards. This encryption is automatically handled using a service-managed key (SMK). There’s no setup required, no toggle to enable—it’s always on. SMK-based encryption ensures that your data is protected by default, delivering all the benefits of AES-...
Azure Managed Instance for Apache Cassandra v5.0 Generally Available!
Azure Managed Instance for Apache Cassandra Upgrade to Cassandra v5.0 is now generally available, bringing a host of powerful new features and performance improvements to your cloud-native applications. This release marks a significant milestone for developers and data platform teams looking to modernize their distributed data infrastructure. Why Upgrade to Cassandra v5.0? Cassandra v5.0 introduces several enhancements that make it a compelling upgrade for existing users and an attractive option for new workloads. With support for ACID transactions, Dynamic Data masking, Vector Search, Storage-attached inde...
Build a RAG application with LangChain and Local LLMs powered by Ollama
Local large language models (LLMs) provide significant advantages for developers and organizations. Key benefits include enhanced data privacy, as sensitive information remains entirely within your own infrastructure, and offline functionality, enabling uninterrupted work even without internet access. While cloud-based LLM services are convenient, running models locally gives you full control over model behavior, performance tuning, and potential cost savings. This makes them ideal for experimentation before running production workloads. The ecosystem for local LLMs has matured significantly, with several exce...
Scalable AI with Azure Cosmos DB – Video Series
Scalable AI in Action with Azure Cosmos DB – A Monthly Partner Showcase As AI continues to reshape industries, customers are seeking scalable, real-time solutions that integrate seamlessly with their existing data platforms. Azure Cosmos DB, with its global distribution, low latency, and multi-model support, is uniquely positioned to power intelligent applications at scale. To help customers explore what’s possible, we’re launching the Scalable AI in Action with Azure Cosmos DB series—a monthly video session that highlights how partners are building transformative AI solutions using Azure Cosmos DB and Azur...