Couchbase today announced general availability of Couchbase Server 4.0, a new release that enables developers to build a much broader variety of Web, mobile and IoT applications on Couchbase. The release delivers new levels of developer agility, enterprise application scalability and performance, and business insight from data stored in Couchbase. The announcement was made from Couchbase Live New York, where companies including General Electric, Gannett, Marriott International, Cox Automotive, DIRECTV, Nielsen and more are speaking about expanding Couchbase deployments to support a wide range of additional applications and use cases.

“Couchbase Server 4.0 is a transformational release. It dramatically increases the types of applications and use cases that Couchbase can support, now with even greater levels of performance and scale,” said Ravi Mayuram, senior vice president, products and engineering, Couchbase. “With innovations such as a our new SQL-based query language, N1QL, and foundational improvements like Global Secondary Indexes, Multi-Dimensional Scaling and Cross Datacenter Replication, we are providing enterprises the breadth of functionality they need to deploy a single distributed database under the majority of their Web, mobile and IoT applications.”

Couchbase N1QL: Agile Development through Flexible Modeling and Powerful Query

Couchbase Server 4.0 introduces a new SQL-based query language, N1QL (pronounced Nickel) that helps developers build enterprise-class applications with less code and greater agility. N1QL is an efficient and complete declarative query language that makes it easy for developers familiar with SQL to build applications on top of a JSON data model that can be extended on demand. Using N1QL, developers can:

  • Develop applications faster by querying data with a familiar SQL-based query language;
  • Develop applications with less code by leveraging a declarative query language to express complex logic executed in the database – instead of writing and executing it within the application;
  • Develop applications with greater agility by creating new indexes and queries without restructuring the data model;
  • Develop applications by reading, writing and querying data in any of the most popular languages and frameworks, with options for asynchronous and reactive data access;
  • Leverage JSON to nest data within a single document or leverage N1QL to model and query data that is stored across multiple documents.

Better Business Insight with Popular Reporting, Visualization and BI Tools

Couchbase Server 4.0 with N1QL also enables standard SQL-based reporting and data visualization tools to access data stored within Couchbase. Through ODBC and JDBC connectivity provided via Simba drivers — that can work with both the standard SQL-92 and N1QL dialects, enterprises can gain business insight using the most widely adopted BI and data visualization tools, including Microsoft Excel, Tableau, Looker, Qlik and more to access data stored in Couchbase.

Multi-Dimensional Scaling and Global Secondary Indexes: Couchbase Solves Distributed Query Performance Limitations

Couchbase Server 4.0 introduces breakthrough architectural innovations that radically improve query performance in a distributed database: Multi-Dimensional Scaling and Global Secondary Indexes. Multi-Dimensional Scaling, previewed earlier this year, provides a better approach to hardware provisioning by enabling systems to scale up or scale out. With this capability, organizations can assign various workloads to specific hardware resources to meet application performance requirements.

Couchbase Server 4.0 is the first distributed database to support Global Secondary Indexes, which extend the performance and scale gains achieved through Multi-Dimensional Scaling. In a horizontally scaling system, the index is typically spread across every server, which can potentially slow down query execution by creating a broad “scatter / gather” requirement. In Couchbase Server 4.0, Multi-Dimensional Scaling makes it possible for Global Secondary Indexes to be assigned to specific hardware resources. This greatly reduces the magnitude of “scatter / gather,” resulting in significant performance increases of query execution within a distributed system.

Powerful Global Data Distribution with Cross Datacenter Replication Filtering

Couchbase Server 4.0 extends its industry leading Cross Datacenter Replication (XDCR) functionality with new filtering capabilities. XDCR is used for many purposes, most commonly high availability and disaster recovery. With the new filtering functionality, subsets of data can be ‘filtered’ for geographic replication without requiring the entire data set to be replicated between datacenters. This delivers a broad set of benefits including making data available to geographically distributed locations with low latency, minimizing network traffic by replicating only the data relevant to a specific geography and the ability to replicate relevant data between private datacenters, public clouds, or both to leverage hybrid cloud infrastructure.

By combining the power of N1QL for application development and business insight, with architectural innovations in Multi-Dimensional Scaling, Secondary Indexes and XDCR, Couchbase Server 4.0 delivers a new level of functionality and performance for distributed architectures that will revolutionize enterprise application development. Developers building Web, mobile and IoT applications for Digital Economy businesses can get started today by downloading Couchbase Server 4.0 and visiting the Couchbase Developer Portal.