Couchbase has announced the general availability of Couchbase Server 7. With this release, enterprise development teams get one unified platform and no longer need to use one database for transactions and a separate database for developer agility and scale. This means that customers can simplify their database architectures, expand Couchbase usage into enterprise transactional applications and reduce operating costs through performance enhancements.

Couchbase Server 7 helps eliminate the complexities of database sprawl by adding fully mature SQL transaction capabilities. This means customers no longer need both a relational database and also a NoSQL database.

Couchbase now has multi-statement SQL transactions by fusing together transactions and high-volume interactions. For the first time, customers can do multi-document SQL ACID transactions with interactions in microseconds all within one unified database platform.

Couchbase Server 7 also enables runtime updates with zero downtime through a dynamic data containment model. Couchbase Server 7 introduces schema and table-like organizing structures, called “scopes and collections,” within the schemaless database.

As the company puts it, only with Couchbase Server 7 can customers add a table (the “collection”) in Couchbase, while transactions are happening without having to add or modify the schema (the “scope”) or take down the database for this upgrade. This greatly speeds up innovation cycles.

Couchbase Server 7 also adds a configurable backup service. Data sets delivered to microservices are faster, index builds execute in parallel and indexes are portable during data rebalancing. And finally, the query service adds a cost-based query optimizer to replace its former rules-based optimization.

Couchbase Server 7 is now generally available.