Book excerpt: Absorb the knowledge required to utilize, manage, and deploy RethinkDB using Node.js About This Book Make the most of this open source, scalable database—RethinkDB —to ease the construction of web applications Run powerful queries using ReQL, which is the most convenient language to manipulate JSON documents with Develop fully-fledged real-time web apps using Node.js and RethinkDB Who This Book Is For Getting Started with RethinkDB is ideal for developers who are new to RethinkDB and need a practical understanding to start working with it. No previous knowledge of database programming is required, although a basic knowledge of JavaScript or Node.js would be helpful. What You Will Learn Download and install the database on your system Configure RethinkDB's settings and start using the web interface Import data into RethinkDB Run queries using the ReQL language Create shards, replicas, and RethinkDB clusters Use an index to improve database performance Get to know all the RethinkDB deployment techniques In Detail RethinkDB is a high-performance document-oriented database with a unique set of features. This increasingly popular NoSQL database is used to develop real-time web applications and, together with Node.js, it can be used to easily deploy them to the cloud with very little difficulty. Getting Started with RethinkDB is designed to get you working with RethinkDB as quickly as possible. Starting with the installation and configuration process, you will learn how to start importing data into the database and run simple queries using the intuitive ReQL query language. After successfully running a few simple queries, you will be introduced to other topics such as clustering and sharding. You will get to know how to set up a cluster of RethinkDB nodes and spread database load across multiple machines. We will then move on to advanced queries and optimization techniques. You will discover how to work with RethinkDB from a Node.js environment and find out all about deployment techniques. Finally, we'll finish by working on a fully-fledged example that uses the Node.js framework and advanced features such as Changefeeds to develop a real-time web application. Style and approach This is a step-by-step book that provides a practical approach to RethinkDB programming, and is explained in a conversational, easy-to-follow style.