A comparison between azure cosmos DB and elasticsearch : A case study on cloud databases

Abstract: Databases originally consisted of big hardware equipment that each company needed to install locally. This kind of system was both costly and somewhat unsafe. However, this solution was well-considered as the amount of information stored was not as large as it is becoming, as the amount of stored information is growing exponentially. The only way to permit the storage of such volume of information, and guarantee its safety, is to move the databases from local-based hardware to remote cloud solutions. Computer giants such as Microsoft have accepted this challenge and can offer stable, price worthy, and safe cloud systems. The computer giants are however not the only ones that can provide such services. Many suppliers can now deliver solutions with the same quality as the one offered by well-known companies. Elastic, for example, is one of them. This study aims to compare one of the best NoSQL databases developed by Microsoft (Azure Cosmos DB) with the systemdeveloped by Elastic (Elasticsearch) to see which one can offer the best performances. This will be achieved by testing both systems in terms of insertions and retrieves. This work shows how both systems offer different performances when running specific tasks, and how the intended usage of the database is crucial when choosing which one to use. This work is done in collaboration with a company called Triona AB, which’s aim was to compare these two databases to choose the most suitable one for their company.