Couchbase Capella makes it faster, easier and more affordable for developers and teams to get started with Couchbase.
With the recent launch of Couchbase Capella, the award-winning database more accessible than ever.
This article is a quick guide on how to get started with a free trial of Capella. Sign up in seconds and have your cluster spun up in under three minutes.
Below is the super abbreviated getting started guide. For more details, see the complete Capella Tutorial in the documentation.
Step One: Signing Up
Start by signing up for your free trial. No credit card needed. Nada, zip, zero.
After signing in, you’ll see the Getting Started page where you have a choice of deployment options. Choose the recommended Couchbase’s Cloud Account option. Pick your region and deploy.
You’ll be taken to the getting started page as your cluster deploys. Here’s a breakdown of what you’ll see:
- Middle section:
- Set Up: Links to the Clusters area, a welcome video and the tutorial
- Access: Provides links to establishing credentials for external database access and the area for setting up allowed IP addresses
- Work With Data: Links to the sample data import tool.
- Right:
- Cluster Status: Links to where you can see all of your database clusters
- What’s Next: Links to many helpful resources and access to the Capella Forum
- Want to Know More?: Here, you can contact the Couchbase team
- Left
- You’ll see the main navigation items like Clusters, Projects and Users
Check out the Welcome video before moving to the next step.
Step Two: Set Up Your Cluster & Import Data
Click on the Clusters link and select the Trial-Cluster. Your view will have multiple tabs and default to Metrics. Click the blue Data Services template link to load a set of default metrics.
Click on the Tools tab and choose Import. We’ll use the Travel Sample dataset. Press the Import button within the Travel Sample area.
Step Three: Run Your First Query
Once the data is loaded, it’s time to run your first query.
Couchbase makes it easy for teams to leverage their SQL knowledge. The power of SQL as a declarative language – combined with a brand-new cost-based optimizer – makes data access simple, even for JOINs across JSON documents (which is complex in other document databases).
The following query uses an inner JOIN to list the source airports and airlines that fly into SFO, where only the non-null route documents join with matching airline documents.
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SELECT route.airlineid, airline.name, route.sourceairport, route.destinationairport FROM `travel-sample` route INNER JOIN `travel-sample` airline ON route.airlineid = META(airline).id WHERE route.type = "route" AND route.destinationairport = "SFO" ORDER BY route.sourceairport; |
Go to Tools > Queryworkbench. Then copy and paste the following query into the Query Editor, then click Execute. Please note the execution time of the query. It’s displayed in milliseconds.
If you select the Plan button, Capella shows you how the query was executed. You can look at the data-flow diagram to see query operators with initial scans at the right and final output on the left. Potentially expensive operators are highlighted. Fetch represents almost 90% of the time spent.
Let’s speed this query up with the Index Service. To determine the right index, we’ll press the Advise button. This gives you a lot of information and recommends an index. You can either copy the recommended CREATE INDEX command from the results or use the statement below.
Paste the CREATE INDEX statement below and press Execute. This takes a few seconds to run.
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CREATE INDEX adv_destinationairport_sourceairport_airlineid_type ON travel-sample(destinationairport,sourceairport,airlineid) WHERE type = 'route' |
Now let’s re-run the Select statement. Press the History button and choose the Select statement. In doing so, Capella automatically reruns the query on your behalf.
Now take a look at the execution time. It’s radically lower.
You’ve now officially run your first query and built your first index in Couchbase Capella.
I recommend walking through the full tutorial. There’s plenty more to explore.
Step Four: Learn More & Get Building
Want to learn more about Couchbase Capella and how it’s different from other DBaaS offerings on the market?
Here are some helpful next steps:
Take advantage of your team’s skills with the familiarity of SQL – the most well-known database language among developers, architects, DBAs, analysts and support teams. Learn more.
Capella fuses the strengths of a relational database with the agility and performance of a NoSQL database, across a broad set of use cases. Learn more.
Leverage built-in capabilities like caching, relational structure support, full-text search, analytics and eventing from a single vendor. Develop faster as there is less to design, deploy and manage. Learn more.
Capella delivers the industry-leading performance and availability needed for enterprise applications. Learn more.
Capella delivers great price performance and licensing flexibility to drive down your total cost of ownership. Learn more.