Use the databook service to store your applications activity and finance based data. Provision a cloud data store in minutes that is not only secure, reliable and supports high transaction volume but can also evolve as your application requirements change.

Databook is designed to take the hassle out of developing applications that require accurate point in time balances whether stock, financials or location. Each databook comes with a full audit trail, undo, redo and geo-location backup as standard. Connect to databook though the RESTful API or use one of the SDK's available here.

The databook API offers the following key capabilities and benefits:

• Single or Double Entry: Choose the posting rules that best match your application. For full financial compliance you can opt for double entry or for event driven data use the simpler single entry mode.
• Activity Line Clearance: If your system requires allocation and clearance logic such as matching receipts to invoices, or tracking stock levels in warehouse then Line clearance will save you hours of development time. Query any account or book for open items based on any reference or tag and then post new transactions with the clearance links to close these items. Clearance links provide the system audit trial and can be used to provide undo and redo functionality in your application.
• Account Balances at any point in time: Quickly view the current balance or request the position at any point in time. Perfect for creating fully auditable systems that still provide a rich data source to power your application. Use analysis fields to create any combination of balance splits for your system entity types such as customer, product, region or financial period.
• Unlimited Analysis fields: Databook allows a schema-free structure for its transaction analysis. This means you can store unlimited analysis types against an activity line and then use any combination of those to calculate a balance per analysis type. This enables your application requirements to change over time without impacting its transaction based accuracy.
• Tuneable validation levels:Select from three well defined validation levels within each databook to achieve optimal trade-off between consistency and performance. Databook offers three distinct levels - Loose, Strict and Real-time. These granular, well defined validation levels allow you to make a sounds trade off between consistency, availability and latency.
• Fully managed: Eliminate the need to manage database and machine resources. As a fully-managed service you do not need to manage machines, deploy and configure software, or deal with complex data-tier upgrades. Every library of data books is automatically backed up and protected against regional failures. You can easily add a databook account and provision capacity as you need it, allowing you to focus on your application.

A databook can store any number of activity lines, as such it is well suited for applications that run at internet scale. For a full range of application scenarios see the examples section.

Databook Resources

The diagram shows the relationship between databook resources:

A subscription consists of a set of databases, each containing multiple libraries, each of which contains several books. Each book has multiple accounts which are configured as single or double entry and either credit or debit as default. Accounts can be aggregated together for reporting using Groups which are scoped at book level. A Library also has associated users each with a set of permissions to access various books, accounts or groups. While libraries, users, permissions, books and accounts are system defined resources with well-known schemas, activity and lines contain arbitrary, user defined content.

Developing against databook

Databook exposes resources via a REST API that can be called by any language capable of making HTTP/HTTPS requests. Additionally, databook offers programming libraries for several languages. These libraries simplify many aspects of working with databook by handling details such as address caching, exception management, automatic retries and so forth. Libraries are currently available for the following languages and platforms, with others on the way:

• .NET
• Javascript

Next Steps

To get started with databook API, explore these resources

• Understand databook concepts
• Application Types and Scenarios
• Get started with databook

Last Updated: 6th Sep 2014