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Introduction to Azure Cosmos DB: Table API

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  • 2 minutes to read

APPLIES TO: Table API

Azure Cosmos DB provides the Table API for applications that are written for Azure Table storage and that need premium capabilities like:

Azure Tables SDKs are available for .NET, Java, Python, Node.js, and Go. These SDKs can be used to target either Table Storage or Cosmos DB Tables. Applications written for Azure Table storage using the Azure Tables SDKs can be migrated to the Azure Cosmos DB Table API with no code changes to take advantage of premium capabilities.

Note

The serverless capacity mode is now available on Azure Cosmos DB's Table API.

Important

The .NET Azure Tables SDK Azure.Data.Tables offers latest features supported by the Table API. The Azure Tables client library can seamlessly target either Azure Table storage or Azure Cosmos DB table service endpoints with no code changes.

Table offerings

If you currently use Azure Table Storage, you gain the following benefits by moving to the Azure Cosmos DB Table API:

Feature Azure Table storage Azure Cosmos DB Table API
Latency Fast, but no upper bounds on latency. Single-digit millisecond latency for reads and writes, backed with <10 ms latency for reads and writes at the 99th percentile, at any scale, anywhere in the world.
Throughput Variable throughput model. Tables have a scalability limit of 20,000 operations/s. Highly scalable with dedicated reserved throughput per table that's backed by SLAs. Accounts have no upper limit on throughput and support >10 million operations/s per table.
Global distribution Single region with one optional readable secondary read region for high availability. Turnkey global distribution from one to any number of regions. Support for service-managed and manual failovers at any time, anywhere in the world. Multiple write regions to let any region accept write operations.
Indexing Only primary index on PartitionKey and RowKey. No secondary indexes. Automatic and complete indexing on all properties by default, with no index management.
Query Query execution uses index for primary key, and scans otherwise. Queries can take advantage of automatic indexing on properties for fast query times.
Consistency Strong within primary region. Eventual within secondary region. Five well-defined consistency levels to trade off availability, latency, throughput, and consistency based on your application needs.
Pricing Consumption-based. Available in both consumption-based and provisioned capacity modes.
SLAs 99.9% to 99.99% availability, depending on the replication strategy. 99.999% read availability, 99.99% write availability on a single-region account and 99.999% write availability on multi-region accounts. Comprehensive SLAs covering availability, latency, throughput and consistency.

Get started

Create an Azure Cosmos DB account in the Azure portal. Then get started with our Quick Start for Table API by using .NET.

Next steps

Here are a few pointers to get you started: