Microsoft has just shipped out its first-ever non-relational database on Windows Azure, which also happens to be its first database product of any kind since releasing its legendary SQL Server.

Called “DocumentDB”, the database is a complete departure from Microsoft’s relational roots, being a schema-free, NoSQL offering built entirely for consumption as a service on the Azure cloud. The service was built following user requests for a fully managed database that could deliver query and transactional capabilities at scale, said Microsoft in its announcement.

DocumentDB is said to combine the database functionality of NoSQL with the transactional capabilities of relational databases. Vibhor Kapoor, Microsoft Azure’s product marketing manager, said it will run exclusively on the Azure cloud hosting service, providing basic document storage capabilities plus transaction semantics and query processing, which are two features commonly found in relational database systems. Kapoor says it’s ideally suited for organizations that require a simple back-end database for mobile or web application storage.

The database was in development for over a year, added Scott Guthrie, Executive Vice President of the Cloud and Enterprise at Microsoft, in his own lengthy blog post on the matter. He said DocumentDB is already running instances that are “hundreds of terabytes” in size, processing millions of complex queries each day.

DocumentDB is a NoSQL database, which means it’s schema free and allows users to store JSON documents and query them using a document-oriented SQL query language.

“DocumentDB has made a significant bet on ubiquitous formats like JSON, HTTP and REST – which makes it easy to start taking advantage of from any web of mobile applications,” said Guthrie, alluding to DocumentDB’s native support for JSON documents and wide range of programming libraries.

Guthrie also hyped up DocumentDB’s scalability, saying those instances now running are doing so with the “predictable performance of low, single digit” millisecond latency. Microsoft is hoping that developers will want to use DocumentDB in conjunction with the REST management API to manage things like subscriptions and billing.

If DocumentDB is even half as succesful as Microsoft’s more famous SQL Server relational database, Redmond will be pleased. The company first shipped SQL Server 1.0 way back in 1989, but it only really caught on with the release of SQL Server 4.21 on its Windows NT server operating system in 1993. Since then however, SQL Server has grown into a multi-million dollar business that drives much of the growth within Microsoft’s server and tools unit.

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