Over the last year, I’ve been presenting on CosmosDB at SQL Saturday’s and various user groups.
This presentation has morphed somewhat over time to now be more of a comparison between functionality in CosmosDB and functionality in SQL Server -and a discussion of where one technology may be more relevant than the other.
In case you’re not aware of CosmosDB it’s Microsoft’s cloud based, planet scale, fully managed NoSQL (that’s Not only SQL) database – and it’s heavily JSON based.
While a lot of the knowledge gained as a SQL Server professional will be relevant to the world of Cosmos DB – there are elements that can lead the SQL Server professional down the wrong path and cause a substantial degree of pain at a later date.
However, lately, I’ve took to diving into the comparison with what I think is a good starting point – and that’s JavaScript Object Notation or JSON.
It’s kind of amazed me how many SQL professionals have turned up for my presentation and have not explored JSON at all – sure, they are aware of what it is, but the mechanics of it are mostly left as an exercise ‘to be explored’ at a later date.
That ‘later date’ maybe when some sort of data transfer has to done involving SSIS, ADF (v2), CosmosDB or some other technology or situation that lends itself well to JSON formats.
One of those uses – I’ve found – is setting up tables with configuration information -sure, there are lots of ways to achieve this, but the JSON format is one of the easier – and best – that I’ve found to date.
SQL Server 2016 introduced JSON support within the database and this support is in every edition of SQL Server from SQL Server 2016 forward.
One myth that I see regularly is that the JSON support in SQL Server may be analogous to the XML support offered by the same product. While, there are some comparisons, I’ve personally found dealing with JSON in SQL Server much more straightforward than dealing with XML – and, if you have never dealt with JSON in SQL Server before then you might be surprised how flexible it it.
For that reason, I’ve decided to invest some time in producing some posts that are specifically dedicated to the JSON functionality in SQL Server, while there’s a lot of good stuff already out there – and I’ll reference this when it’s relevant – one of my goals will be to build on each post to eventually explore many uses and potentials of JSON and the opportunites that it offers for SQL Server professionals.
I hope you enjoy it and I’d love to get feedback from you of any variety.
Have a great day
Cheers
Marty