Compose Platform FAQ

What is Compose? Why do we call it a platform? What's great about Compose database deployments? These questions, and more, are answered here. If you want to know about a specific database, head to our database index.

What makes a Compose Deployment unique?

We allow Developers to focus on what they do best. With other database as a service providers, developers spend too long trying to cut through the marketing speak to understand which service tier is needed. No matter the database size, our deployments come with a consistent set of features. Thus, our auto-scaling deployments avoid the guesswork of capacity and feature matching matrix. After connecting your application to your database, you can dedicate your time to building your product.

What are some of the basic deployment features?

• Automatically scaling server stack that scales RAM, CPU, and I/O as your data grows.
• Database storage performed on extremely fast SSDs (solid state drives).
• Guaranteed resources per database.
• No-cost backups, no matter how big your database grows.
• Simple, transparent, per GB payment plans.
• Security monitoring tools.
• Optional two-factor authentication.

How much does Compose cost?

All our deployments start with a base configuration which usually supports 1GB of data storage. There is then a set price increment for each extra gigabyte of data storage. RAM, CPU and I/O increase as extra storage is added. This makes Compose pricing easy to understand and predict as your usage increases.

A practical example would be MongoDB, where your base configuration costs $31 per month. That has 1GB of storage with it. The next and all subsequent gigabytes of storage will each cost an extra $18 a month.

Each database has its own pricing for the initial and per gigabyte costs. Current pricing is visible on the pricing page and is displayed when you select a database for deployment.

There are add-ons for all databases available which add to the monthly cost of the database deployment.

How do you control access to databases?

A Compose account can have many users. An access control system is available to restrict those users access to administration and database functions. You can read about it in the Compose Access Controls section.

How do you make Compose databases reliable?

Every deployment is designed with high-availability (HA) as a core requirement. With each plan you get fully redundant architecture from the hardware to your database itself. Each database type implements HA according to the best practice specification.

How do backups work?

Consult our dedicated page on Compose Backups.

How does auto-scaling work?

We have a dedicated page on Compose Auto-scaling which explains how the system works.

Which data centers can I host my data within?

Check out the Compose Datacenter Availability page where all the services available at the various datacenters around the world are listed.

Does Compose work with internal AWS traffic?

For our shared plans, in short, "yes." This assumes that your application is also hosted in the US East region of the Amazon EC2 platform. Many popular application hosting providers, like Heroku, CloudBees, AppHarbor, Nodejitsu, etc. primarily use this region.

So, using Compose for your MongoDB hosting and one of those providers for your application hosting would allow you to take advantage of internal traffic.

How do I set this up?

You don't need to do anything ... simply make sure that when referencing your database, you use the DNS name that we provide to you (ex. environment_name.compose.io) and your request will be automatically and properly routed.

Is this important?

It really depends on your situation ... we are happy to discuss options with you if you have more questions about this. The biggest benefit that you receive is decreased latency. But, even outside of the Amazon platform, latency is still at an acceptable level, so don't feel like you cannot use our service simply because you choose to host your application on a server or platform in a different location.

How do I delete my deployments?

To remove a deployment, you'll need to click into the deployment that you'd like to remove. Then click the "Settings" icon for that deployment. Then scroll to the bottom of the page and click the "Delete Deployment" button.

Be very careful!

You'll want to make sure that you've made any appropriate backups as this action cannot be undone. Once you've done that, the deployment is removed from your account and billing is stopped.

What happened to sandbox deployments? Is there a free version?

We no longer offer Sandbox deployments to our users. When you sign up, you're getting a free month of Compose. You can spin up and experiment with any number of our databases.
For those unfamiliar, our sandbox deployments were a freemium implementation and were never meant to be robust, production caliber instances. The databases you'll create during your trial are fully featured and ready to take whatever you can throw at them.

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