Azure Cosmos DB Blog
The latest news, updates and technical insights from the Azure Cosmos DB team
Latest posts
Elevating Azure Cosmos DB Resilience with Per Partition Automatic Failover
Announcing Per Partition Automatic Failover for Azure Cosmos DB Today, we’re excited to announce the preview of Per Partition Automatic Failover (PPAF) for Azure Cosmos DB, a significant improvement to our single-region write accounts that boosts availability and resilience. If you rely on Azure Cosmos DB to be “always on” for your mission-critical applications, this new feature is built for you. Per Partition Automatic Failover enables Azure Cosmos DB to recover more quickly and efficiently during regional outages. Azure Cosmos DB already supports active-active deployment using multi-writes. With PPAF, we no...
Azure AI Foundry Connection for Azure Cosmos DB and BYO Thread Storage in Azure AI Agent Service
We’re announcing new integrations between Azure Cosmos DB and the Azure AI ecosystem: the Azure AI Foundry Connection for Azure Cosmos DB and bring-your-own thread storage in Azure AI Agent Service. These capabilities make it easier for developers to build enterprise-ready agentic applications using their own data stored in Azure Cosmos DB. Azure AI Foundry Connection for Azure Cosmos DB The Azure AI Foundry Connection for Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL is a foundational step toward enabling rich data scenarios for AI and agentic applications. This integration opens the door to advanced data capabilities within the ...
Build 2025 Preview: Transform Your AI Apps and Agents with Azure Cosmos DB
Microsoft Build is less than a week away, and the Azure Cosmos DB team will be out in force to showcase the newest features and capabilities for building AI apps and agents with scalable, fast, high-performance data. Whether you’re in person at the Seattle Convention Center or watching the live or on-demand digital show, we can’t wait to show you what we’ve been up to. Add these breakout, demo, and labs sessions to your Build schedule: Monday, May 19th 🗓️ 11:45am PT: What’s New in Microsoft Databases: Empowering AI-Driven App Dev (BRK204) with Shireesh Thota, Corporate VP of Engineering – Databases...
Fabric Mirroring for Azure Cosmos DB: Public Preview Refresh Now Live with New Features
We’re thrilled to announce the latest refresh of Fabric Mirroring for Azure Cosmos DB, now available with several powerful new features that enhance your data analytics infrastructure. This update significantly improves the experience, making it easier than ever to replicate your Azure Cosmos DB data into OneLake in Microsoft Fabric—giving you more control and flexibility over your mirrored databases. New Features Entra ID Authentication Support for Source Connections Azure Cosmos DB Mirroring now supports authentication via Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD), in addition to account keys. This enhancem...
Azure Cosmos DB with DiskANN Part 4: Stable Vector Search Recall with Streaming Data
Vector search with Azure Cosmos DB In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, we explored vector search with Azure Cosmos DB and best practices for scaling it to 1 billion vector datasets while maintaining low query latency. In Part 3, we saw how we can create efficient sharded DiskANN indices for multi-tenant apps. In Part 4, we’ll look at the effect that streaming ingestion, a stream of inserts, deletes, and replaces of vectors in the database, has on the quality of the vector index. This is unlike the often reported single-shot ingestion where data is ingested once in bulk and recall is measured at the end whe...
General Availability for Data API in vCore-based Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB
Title: General Availability for Data API in vCore-based Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB We’re excited to announce the general availability of the Data API for vCore-based Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB! Overview The Data API is a RESTful HTTPS interface that enables developers to interact with their MongoDB data hosted in vCore-based Azure Cosmos DB directly from their applications—no drivers or complex query logic required. It offers a simple, efficient way to connect your MongoDB data with web apps, mobile apps, and tools like Power BI. At launch, the Data API supports the following read operations: ...
Getting Started with Azure Cosmos DB Using the Python SDK
If you're new to Azure Cosmos DB and looking to build applications with Python, you're in the right place. I’ve created a four-part video series designed to take you from the basics to practical, real-world querying techniques—no prior experience required. Whether you’re setting up your first database, learning how to model your data, or optimizing your queries, this series will help you build confidence with each step. This blog post is your companion guide. It introduces key concepts, outlines what each video covers, and provides helpful context so you can follow along more effectively. Whether you're a stud...
Fast, Accurate, and Affordable: Sharded DiskANN for Multitenant Vector Search in Azure Cosmos DB
Introduction Azure Cosmos DB now includes Sharded DiskANN, a powerful capability that optimized for large-scale multitenant apps by splitting a DiskANN index into smaller, more performant pieces. When you specify a VectorIndexShardKey in your container’s indexing policy, Azure Cosmos DB creates multiple DiskANN indexes, one for each unique value of the selected document property. This can provide multiple benefits including: Use Cases Sharded DiskANN is especially valuable in scenarios where data isolation and targeted search are essential, such as: How is it different than...
Azure Cosmos DB Conf 2025 Recap: AI, Apps & Scale
On April 15, 2025, developers from around the world came together for Azure Cosmos DB Conf 2025—a free virtual event co-hosted by Microsoft and the vibrant Azure Cosmos DB community. From early-morning keynotes to lightning talks and live demos, the event was packed with fresh insights, expert guidance, and real-world examples of how developers are solving complex challenges with Azure Cosmos DB. This year’s sessions explored a broad spectrum of themes, including AI-powered workloads, real-time analytics, cost optimization, open-source tools, hybrid and vector search, and data security. Whether attendees were new...