Table of Contents
Couchbase Server is a distributed, document ("NoSQL") database management system, designed to store the information for web applications. Couchbase Server provides a managed in-memory caching tier, so that it supports very fast create, store, update and retrieval operations.
These features are designed to support web application development where the high-performance characteristics are required to support low-latency and high throughput applications. Couchbase Server achieves this on a single server and provides support for the load to be increased almost linearly by making use of the clustered functionality built into Couchbase Server.
The cluster component distributes data over multiple servers to share the data and I/O load, while incorporating intelligence into the server and client access libraries that enable clients to quickly access the right node within the cluster for the information required. This intelligent distribution allows Couchbase Server to provide excellent scalability that can be extended simply by adding more servers as your load and application requirements increase.
For a more in-depth description of Couchbase Server, see the following sections:
The guiding principles and design goals of Couchbase Server are covered inSection 1.1, “Couchbase Server Basics”.
Couchbase Server is part of the NoSQL database movement. For background information on what NoSQL is, and how this maps to Couchbase Server functionality, see Section 1.2, “Couchbase Server and NoSQL”.
Information on the different components and systems in Couchbase Server, and how these map to the concepts and architecture required to understand the fundamentals of how it works are provided in Section 1.3, “Architecture and Concepts”.