Cloudant
Cloudant, acquired by IBM in 2014, is a Boston-based company offering a distributed database-as-a-service (DBaaS) designed for developers of fast-growing web and mobile apps, built on Apache CouchDB.
Company History
Founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2008 by three MIT physicists, Cloudant initially focused on providing a high-performance, distributed database-as-a-service (DBaaS). The company launched officially in January 2012 and became part of Y Combinator's Summer 2008 batch. By 2014, Cloudant had grown significantly and was acquired by IBM. Today, it is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, and serves thousands of developers and hundreds of customers worldwide.
Services
Cloudant offers a fully managed, distributed database-as-a-service (DBaaS) designed to handle heavy workloads and support fast-growing web and mobile applications. Built on open-source Apache CouchDB, Cloudant provides high availability, elastic scaling, and a 99.99% SLA as an IBM Cloud service. It takes care of software and hardware provisioning, management and scaling, and offers support for programming languages including Mobile for Android and iOS, Java, Node.js, Python, and Swift. Cloudant also provides a free 1 GB trial.
Technology and Features
Cloudant leverages open-source Apache CouchDB and has integrated additional technologies to offer features like full text search and geospatial indexing. The service supports JSON document stores, allowing for flexible data structures that can evolve without administrative intervention. Cloudant Mobile Sync enables offline-first architecture, allowing mobile apps to collect and read data even when the network is unavailable, and synchronizes the data once the connection is reestablished. It works seamlessly with Hoodie and PouchDB for offline capabilities.
Target Market and User Base
Cloudant is designed for developers of fast-growing web and mobile applications, focusing on the B2B infrastructure market. The company serves a global user base with thousands of developers and hundreds of customers, offering robust solutions for data storage and management across various industries. Its API and replication protocols are compatible with Apache CouchDB, making it suitable for hybrid or multicloud architectures.
Acquisition by IBM
In 2014, Cloudant was acquired by IBM, a move that integrated its distributed database-as-a-service capabilities into IBM's broader cloud services portfolio. As an IBM Cloud service, Cloudant continues to offer high availability, elastic scaling, and comprehensive support, while benefiting from IBM's extensive infrastructure and enterprise-grade service levels.