Connect an Azure Cosmos DB database to your application in Azure Spring Apps

Note

The Basic, Standard, and Enterprise plans will be deprecated starting from mid-March, 2025, with a 3 year retirement period. We recommend transitioning to Azure Container Apps. For more information, see the Azure Spring Apps retirement announcement.

The Standard consumption and dedicated plan will be deprecated starting September 30, 2024, with a complete shutdown after six months. We recommend transitioning to Azure Container Apps. For more information, see Migrate Azure Spring Apps Standard consumption and dedicated plan to Azure Container Apps.

This article applies to: ✔️ Java ✔️ C#

This article applies to: ✔️ Basic/Standard ✔️ Enterprise

Instead of manually configuring your Spring Boot applications, you can automatically connect selected Azure services to your applications by using Azure Spring Apps. This article demonstrates how to connect your application to an Azure Cosmos DB database.

Prerequisites

• An application deployed to Azure Spring Apps. For more information, see Quickstart: Deploy your first application to Azure Spring Apps.
• An Azure Cosmos DB database instance.
• Azure CLI version 2.45.0 or higher.

Prepare your project

Java

1. Add one of the following dependencies to your application's pom.xml file. Choose the dependency that is appropriate for your API type.

   • API type: NoSQL

     <dependency>
         <groupId>com.azure.spring</groupId>
         <artifactId>spring-cloud-azure-starter-data-cosmos</artifactId>
     </dependency>
     

   • API type: MongoDB

     <dependency>
         <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
         <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-mongodb</artifactId>
     </dependency>
     

   • API type: Cassandra

     <dependency>
         <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
         <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-cassandra</artifactId>
     </dependency>
     

2. Update the current app by running az spring app deploy, or create a new deployment for this change by running az spring app deployment create.

Polyglot

All the connection strings and credentials are injected as environment variables, which you can reference in your application code.

For the default environment variable names, see the following articles:

• Azure Cosmos DB for Table
• Azure Cosmos DB for NoSQL
• Azure Cosmos DB for MongoDB
• Azure Cosmos DB for Gremlin
• Azure Cosmos DB for Cassandra

Connect your app to the Azure Cosmos DB

Service Connector

Note

By default, Service Connectors are created at the application level. To override the connections, you can create other connections again in the deployments.

Use the Azure CLI

Use the Azure CLI to configure your Spring app to connect to a Cosmos NoSQL Database by using the az spring connection create command, as shown in the following example. Be sure to replace the variables in the example with actual values.

Note

Updating Azure Cosmos DB database settings can take a few minutes to complete.

Note

If you're using Cosmos Cassandra, use --key_space instead of --database. If you're using Cosmos Table, use --table instead of --database. For more information, see Quickstart: Create a service connection in Azure Spring Apps with the Azure CLI.

az spring connection create cosmos-sql \
    --resource-group $AZURE_SPRING_APPS_RESOURCE_GROUP \
    --service $AZURE_SPRING_APPS_SERVICE_INSTANCE_NAME \
    --app $APP_NAME \
    --target-resource-group $COSMOSDB_RESOURCE_GROUP \
    --account $COSMOSDB_ACCOUNT_NAME \
    --database $DATABASE_NAME \
    --secret

Note

If you're using Service Connector for the first time, start by running the command az provider register --namespace Microsoft.ServiceLinker to register the Service Connector resource provider.

Tip

Run the command az spring connection list-support-types --output table to get a list of supported target services and authentication methods for Azure Spring Apps. If the az spring command isn't recognized by the system, check that you have installed the required extension by running az extension add --name spring.

Use the Azure portal

Alternatively, you can use the Azure portal to configure this connection by completing the following steps. The Azure portal provides the same capabilities as the Azure CLI and provides an interactive experience.

1. Select your Azure Spring Apps instance in the Azure portal and select Apps from the navigation menu. Choose the app you want to connect and select Service Connector on the navigation menu.

2. Select Create.

3. On the Basics tab, for service type, select Cosmos DB, then choose a subscription. For API type, select Core (SQL), choose a Cosmos DB account, and a database. For client type, select Java, then select Next: Authentication. If you haven't created your database yet, see Quickstart: Create an Azure Cosmos DB account, database, container, and items from the Azure portal.

4. On the Authentication tab, choose Connection string. Service Connector automatically retrieves the access key from your Cosmos DB account. Select Next: Networking.

5. On the Networking tab, select Configure firewall rules to enable access to target service, then select Next: Review + Create.

6. On the Review + Create tab, wait for the validation to pass and then select Create. The creation can take a few minutes to complete.

7. Once the connection between your Spring apps and your Cosmos DB database has been generated, you can see it in the Service Connector page and select the unfold button to view the configured connection variables.

Terraform

The following Terraform script shows how to set up an app deployed to Azure Spring Apps with an Azure Cosmos DB account.

provider "azurerm" {
  features {}
}

variable "application_name" {
  type        = string
  description = "The name of your application"
  default     = "demo-cosmosdb"
}

resource "azurerm_resource_group" "example" {
  name     = "example-resources"
  location = "West Europe"
}

resource "azurerm_cosmosdb_account" "cosmosdb" {
  name                = "cosmosacct-${var.application_name}-001"
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.example.name
  location            = azurerm_resource_group.example.location
  offer_type          = "Standard"
  kind                = "GlobalDocumentDB"

  consistency_policy {
    consistency_level = "Session"
  }

  geo_location {
    failover_priority = 0
    location          = azurerm_resource_group.example.location
  }
}

resource "azurerm_cosmosdb_sql_database" "cosmosdb" {
  name                = "cosmos-${var.application_name}-001"
  resource_group_name = azurerm_cosmosdb_account.cosmosdb.resource_group_name
  account_name        = azurerm_cosmosdb_account.cosmosdb.name
}

resource "azurerm_spring_cloud_service" "example" {
  name                = "${var.application_name}"
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.example.name
  location            = azurerm_resource_group.example.location
}

resource "azurerm_spring_cloud_app" "example" {
  name                = "${var.application_name}-app"
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.example.name
  service_name        = azurerm_spring_cloud_service.example.name
  is_public           = true
  https_only          = true
}

resource "azurerm_spring_cloud_java_deployment" "example" {
  name                = "default"
  spring_cloud_app_id = azurerm_spring_cloud_app.example.id
  quota {
    cpu    = "2"
    memory = "4Gi"
  }
  instance_count      = 1
  jvm_options         = "-XX:+PrintGC"
  runtime_version     = "Java_11"

  environment_variables = {
    "spring.cloud.azure.cosmos.endpoint" : azurerm_cosmosdb_account.cosmosdb.endpoint
    "spring.cloud.azure.cosmos.key" : azurerm_cosmosdb_account.cosmosdb.primary_key
    "spring.cloud.azure.cosmos.database" : azurerm_cosmosdb_sql_database.cosmosdb.name
  }
}

resource "azurerm_spring_cloud_active_deployment" "example" {
  spring_cloud_app_id = azurerm_spring_cloud_app.example.id
  deployment_name     = azurerm_spring_cloud_java_deployment.example.name
}

Next steps

In this article, you learned how to connect your application in Azure Spring Apps to an Azure Cosmos DB database. To learn more about connecting services to your application, see Connect to an Azure Cache for Redis cache.