Quickstart: Create an Azure Cosmos DB and a container using Bicep

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APPLIES TO: NoSQL

Azure Cosmos DB is 21Vianet's fast NoSQL database with open APIs for any scale. You can use Azure Cosmos DB to quickly create and query key/value databases, document databases, and graph databases. This quickstart focuses on the process of deploying a Bicep file to create an Azure Cosmos database and a container within that database. You can later store data in this container.

Bicep is a domain-specific language (DSL) that uses declarative syntax to deploy Azure resources. It provides concise syntax, reliable type safety, and support for code reuse. Bicep offers the best authoring experience for your infrastructure-as-code solutions in Azure.

Prerequisites

An Azure subscription or free Azure Cosmos DB trial account.

  • If you don't have an Azure subscription, create a trial account before you begin.

Review the Bicep file

The Bicep file used in this quickstart is from Azure Quickstart Templates.

@description('Azure Cosmos DB account name, max length 44 characters')
param accountName string = 'sql-${uniqueString(resourceGroup().id)}'

@description('Location for the Azure Cosmos DB account.')
param location string = resourceGroup().location

@description('The primary region for the Azure Cosmos DB account.')
param primaryRegion string

@description('The secondary region for the Azure Cosmos DB account.')
param secondaryRegion string

@allowed([
  'Eventual'
  'ConsistentPrefix'
  'Session'
  'BoundedStaleness'
  'Strong'
])
@description('The default consistency level of the Cosmos DB account.')
param defaultConsistencyLevel string = 'Session'

@minValue(10)
@maxValue(2147483647)
@description('Max stale requests. Required for BoundedStaleness. Valid ranges, Single Region: 10 to 2147483647. Multi Region: 100000 to 2147483647.')
param maxStalenessPrefix int = 100000

@minValue(5)
@maxValue(86400)
@description('Max lag time (minutes). Required for BoundedStaleness. Valid ranges, Single Region: 5 to 84600. Multi Region: 300 to 86400.')
param maxIntervalInSeconds int = 300

@allowed([
  true
  false
])
@description('Enable system managed failover for regions')
param systemManagedFailover bool = true

@description('The name for the database')
param databaseName string = 'myDatabase'

@description('The name for the container')
param containerName string = 'myContainer'

@minValue(400)
@maxValue(1000000)
@description('The throughput for the container')
param throughput int = 400

var accountName_var = toLower(accountName)
var consistencyPolicy = {
  Eventual: {
    defaultConsistencyLevel: 'Eventual'
  }
  ConsistentPrefix: {
    defaultConsistencyLevel: 'ConsistentPrefix'
  }
  Session: {
    defaultConsistencyLevel: 'Session'
  }
  BoundedStaleness: {
    defaultConsistencyLevel: 'BoundedStaleness'
    maxStalenessPrefix: maxStalenessPrefix
    maxIntervalInSeconds: maxIntervalInSeconds
  }
  Strong: {
    defaultConsistencyLevel: 'Strong'
  }
}
var locations = [
  {
    locationName: primaryRegion
    failoverPriority: 0
    isZoneRedundant: false
  }
  {
    locationName: secondaryRegion
    failoverPriority: 1
    isZoneRedundant: false
  }
]

resource account 'Microsoft.DocumentDB/databaseAccounts@2024-02-15-preview' = {
  name: toLower(accountName)
  location: location
  kind: 'GlobalDocumentDB'
  properties: {
    consistencyPolicy: consistencyPolicy[defaultConsistencyLevel]
    locations: locations
    databaseAccountOfferType: 'Standard'
    enableAutomaticFailover: systemManagedFailover
    disableKeyBasedMetadataWriteAccess: true
  }
}

resource database 'Microsoft.DocumentDB/databaseAccounts/sqlDatabases@2024-02-15-preview' = {
  parent: account
  name: databaseName
  properties: {
    resource: {
      id: databaseName
    }
  }
}

resource container 'Microsoft.DocumentDB/databaseAccounts/sqlDatabases/containers@2024-02-15-preview' = {
  parent: database
  name: containerName
  properties: {
    resource: {
      id: containerName
      partitionKey: {
        paths: [
          '/myPartitionKey'
        ]
        kind: 'Hash'
      }
      indexingPolicy: {
        indexingMode: 'consistent'
        includedPaths: [
          {
            path: '/*'
          }
        ]
        excludedPaths: [
          {
            path: '/myPathToNotIndex/*'
          }
          {
            path: '/_etag/?'
          }
        ]
        compositeIndexes: [
          [
            {
              path: '/name'
              order: 'ascending'
            }
            {
              path: '/age'
              order: 'descending'
            }
          ]
        ]
        spatialIndexes: [
          {
            path: '/location/*'
            types: [
              'Point'
              'Polygon'
              'MultiPolygon'
              'LineString'
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
      defaultTtl: 86400
      uniqueKeyPolicy: {
        uniqueKeys: [
          {
            paths: [
              '/phoneNumber'
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
    }
    options: {
      throughput: throughput
    }
  }
}

output location string = location
output name string = database.name
output resourceGroupName string = resourceGroup().name
output resourceId string = database.id

Three Azure resources are defined in the Bicep file:

Important

The Azure Resource Manager provider, Microsoft.DocumentDB/databaseAccounts, has maintained the same name for many years. This ensures that templates written years ago are still compatible with the same provider even as the name of the service and sub-services have evolved.

Deploy the Bicep file

  1. Save the Bicep file as main.bicep to your local computer.

  2. Deploy the Bicep file using either Azure CLI or Azure PowerShell.

    az group create --name exampleRG --location chinaeast
az deployment group create --resource-group exampleRG --template-file main.bicep --parameters primaryRegion=<primary-region> secondaryRegion=<secondary-region>

    Note

    Replace <primary-region> with the primary replica region for the Azure Cosmos DB account, such as ChinaNorth. Replace <secondary-region> with the secondary replica region for the Azure Cosmos DB account, such as ChinaEast.

    When the deployment finishes, you should see a message indicating the deployment succeeded.

Validate the deployment

Use the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or Azure PowerShell to list the deployed resources in the resource group.

az resource list --resource-group exampleRG

Clean up resources

If you plan to continue working with subsequent quickstarts and tutorials, you might want to leave these resources in place. When no longer needed, use the Azure portal, Azure CLI, or Azure PowerShell to delete the resource group and its resources.

az group delete --name exampleRG

Next steps

In this quickstart, you created an Azure Cosmos DB account, a database and a container by using a Bicep file and validated the deployment. To learn more about Azure Cosmos DB and Bicep, continue on to the articles below.