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The data layer for hyperscale, resilient and globally available applications—based on open-source Apache CouchDB
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What is IBM Cloudant?

IBM® Cloudant® is a fully managed NoSQL database service that offers scalability capabilities to for developers and businesses. It allows users to effortlessly handle large volumes of data and high traffic loads with minimal maintenance. Built on CouchDB technology with compatible API and replication protocols, IBM Cloudant supports flexible, schema-free JSON document storage, which is ideal for applications that require rapid, iterative development and dynamic data structures. It’s high availability and automated failover ensure 99.99% SLA reliability and minimal downtime. IBM Cloudant also integrates seamlessly with other IBM Cloud services, providing a cohesive ecosystem for developing and managing modern applications. 

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New users of IBM Cloudant can receive a USD 250 credit. Apply code DSFREE250.

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Use cases

Serverless web app and API Create a serverless web application in IBM Cloud Object Storage by hosting static website content and implementing the application back end using IBM Cloud Code Engine and Cloudant as a JSON document database. View the tutorial

Mobile app with serverless In this tutorial, you'll learn how to use IBM Cloud Functions along with cognitive and data services to build a serverless back end for a mobile app.

Find anomalies in IoT data This tutorial shows how to set up an IoT device and gather data in the IBM Watson IoT® Platform. Create visualizations and use advanced ML services to analyze historical data and detect anomalies.

Open hybrid multicloud Pair the API and powerful replication protocol of Cloudant with Apache CouchDB in a hybrid cloud environment.

Benefits Serverless

Instantly deploy an instance, create databases and independently scale throughput capacity and data storage to meet your application requirements.

Secure

Encrypt all data, with optional user-defined encryption key management through IBM Key Protect, and integrate with IBM Identity and Access Management.

Global availability

Get continuous availability as Cloudant distributes data across availability zones and 6 regions for app performance and disaster recovery requirements.

Frequently asked questions

Get answers to the most commonly asked questions about this product.

Cloudant handles software and hardware provisioning, management and scaling, and support. You'll receive high availability and elastic scaling of the hardware as your provisioned throughput capacity needs change. Learn about the other benefits of database as a service (DBaaS).

 

Document data stores are represented in JSON, where each document is itself a complex data structure. Documents can contain nested structures of various data types, and users can query these structures, retrieving or updating the document, or portions of it, without locking down the database. Documents are stored and retrieved through a unique primary key.

JSON’s appeal stems partly from its schema, which can rapidly evolve without admin intervention. JSON offers an elegant model for persisting Java or JavaScript objects due to its affinity with JavaScript—with no need for "heavyweights" such as OpenJPA or Hibernate to build a data-layer solution. Storing a JSON document to represent a real object is fairly intuitive.

While Cloudant is API-compatible with Apache CouchDB, unlike CouchDB, Cloudant has layered additional open-source technologies for full text search and geospatial indexing capabilities. Both share a common replication protocol, so you can synchronize copies of your Cloudant data to a remote CouchDB instance—or vice versa—with a click. Explore the differences.

Offline-first architecture means building an app without an internet connection; the architecture lets you interact with your app without connectivity. Using Cloudant Mobile Sync, mobile apps can collect and read data when the network is unavailable. Once the connection is established, the data will sync with Cloudant. Cloudant also works with Hoodie and PouchDB.

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