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October 17, 2013

KuroBase Offering Couchbase in the Cloud

Isaac Lopez

Among the key reasons that businesses turn to a NoSQL database, in addition to scalability and performance, is ease of use and development. Ease of use just got easier for businesses looking to move to the Couchbase NoSQL platform, as Silicon Valley-based KuroBase launches its new Couchbase as a service offering.

Couchbase is a popular NoSQL database technology that excels in key value and document-oriented data storage. The company claims around 350 customers across several vertical fields including Web commerce, media and advertising, financial services and more (customers include AOL, Cisco, LinkedIn, Orbitz, etc.)

The company, which launched its database in 2010, was previously known primarily as a key value database – a posture that changed when it released its Couchbase Server 2.0 product late last year, giving the framework expanded document store capabilities and putting the platform at direct loggerheads with the popular MongoDB.

The company has recently spring boarded off this posture by launching what its refers to as its “JSON Anywhere” mobile strategy, offering a native NoSQL database framework aimed specifically at the mobile application market.

From the Couchbase release:

JSON Anywhere means: JSON on the device, JSON on the wire, and JSON in the cloud. Data stored in Couchbase Lite on a mobile device is seamlessly synchronized with the Couchbase Server in the cloud, enabling the simple development of a new class of occasionally connected, data intensive mobile applications.”

The KuroBase development takes this strategy a step further by eliminating the hardware requirements by giving mobile developers the ability to put everything into the cloud, where it can sync with mobile applications in the field using the new Couchbase Sync Gateway.

“Most web and mobile application developers would rather invest their resources into developing products, not setting up and managing databases,” explained KuroBase CEO and co-founder Mohamed Hamedi in a statement. “Yet they are hindered by the lack of flexible, scalable, and easy-to-implement solutions. We created KuroBase to deliver the Database-as-a-Service, doing all the heavy lifting to get developers up and running in minutes.”

The new company appears to be aiming to push the ease of use angle on several fronts, including scaling. Per the KuroBase release:

“The first KuroBase offering delivers a fully managed Couchbase database server in the cloud as well as the mobile-enabling Couchbase Sync Gateway, bringing the full Couchbase Server capabilities to all developers. At the core is the KuroBase Orchestration Platform that enables seamless provisioning of any service to support operational database and big data requirements. Further, since it is nearly impossible for most developers to predict how much data they’ll generate, KuroBase’s Elastic Storage removes disk allocation from the formula. Applications can continue to send and store data while the KuroBase Platform dynamically adjusts the database parameters to meet real-time needs.”

The companies say that they have plans to work together to explore and expand their common offerings into new markets.

The launch of the new company and the associated strategy could prove to be a very positive development for Couchbase, though the company isn’t without significant challenges. Rival NoSQL vendor, MongoDB just closed on a stunning $150 million in funding earlier this month, bringing its total war chest to $230 million.

While Couchbase had a recent funding round of their own to brag about ($25M in Series D funding in late August bringing their funding total to approx. $56M), it falls well short of the Mongo war chest.

Related items:

MongoDB Goes Big with $150 Million Round 

Couchbase Finds $25M in the Cushions 

DataStax Rakes $45 Million; Schemes Growth 

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