# Get started with Amazon DocumentDB
There are many ways to connect and get started with Amazon DocumentDB. This guide is the quickest, simplest, and easiest way for users to get started using our powerful document database. This guide uses [Amazon CloudShell](https://docs.amazonaws.cn/cloudshell/latest/userguide/welcome.html) to connect and query your Amazon DocumentDB cluster directly from the Amazon Web Services Management Console. New customers who are eligible for the Amazon Free Tier can use Amazon DocumentDB and CloudShell for free. If your Amazon CloudShell environment or Amazon DocumentDB cluster makes use of resources beyond the free tier, you are charged the normal Amazon rates for those resources. This guide will get you started with Amazon DocumentDB in less than five minutes.
**Note**
The instructions in this guide are specifically for creating and connecting to Amazon DocumentDB instance-based clusters where Amazon DocumentDB and Amazon CloudShell are available.
If you want to create and connect to Amazon DocumentDB elastic clusters, see [Get started with Amazon DocumentDB elastic clusters](elastic-get-started.md).
If you are located in Amazon China Regions, see [Connect Amazon EC2 automatically](connect-ec2-auto.md).
**Topics**
+ [Prerequisites](#quickstart-prerequisites)
+ [Step 1: Create a cluster](#get-start-cluster)
+ [Step 2: Connect to your cluster](#get-start-connectcluster)
+ [Step 3: Insert and query data](#get-start-insert-query)
+ [Step 4: Explore](#get-start-congrats)
## Prerequisites
Before you create your first Amazon DocumentDB cluster, you must do the following:
**Create an Amazon Web Services (Amazon) account**
Before you can begin using Amazon DocumentDB, you must have an Amazon Web Services (Amazon) account. The Amazon account is free. You pay only for the services and resources that you use.
If you do not have an Amazon Web Services account, use the following procedure to create one.
**To sign up for Amazon Web Services**
1. Open [http://www.amazonaws.cn/](http://www.amazonaws.cn/) and choose **Sign Up**.
1. Follow the on-screen instructions.
**Set up the needed Amazon Identity and Access Management (IAM) permissions.**
Access to manage Amazon DocumentDB resources such as clusters, instances, and cluster parameter groups requires credentials that Amazon can use to authenticate your requests. For more information, see [Identity and Access Management for Amazon DocumentDB](security-iam.md).
1. In the search bar of the Amazon Web Services Management Console, type in IAM and select **IAM** in the drop down menu that appears.
1. Once you're in the IAM console, select **Users** from the navigation pane.
1. Select your username.
1. Click **Add permissions**.
1. Select **Attach policies directly**.
1. Type `AmazonDocDBFullAccess` in the search bar and select it once it appears in the search results.
1. Click **Next**.
1. Click **Add permissions**.
****
Your Amazon account includes a default VPC in each Region. If you choose to use an Amazon VPC, complete the steps in the [Create an Amazon VPC](https://docs.amazonaws.cn/vpc/latest/userguide/create-vpc.html) topic in the *Amazon VPC User Guide*.
## Step 1: Create a cluster
In this step you will create an Amazon DocumentDB cluster.
1. Sign in to the Amazon Web Services Management Console, and open the Amazon DocumentDB console at [https://console.amazonaws.cn/docdb](https://console.amazonaws.cn/docdb).
1. On the Amazon DocumentDB management console, under **Clusters**, choose **Create**.
![\[Empty Clusters dashboard with options to create a new cluster and manage resources.\]](http://docs.amazonaws.cn/en_us/documentdb/latest/developerguide/images/ec-gs-start.png)
1. On the Create Amazon DocumentDB cluster page, in the **Cluster type** section, choose **Instance-based cluster** (this is the default option).
![\[Cluster type selection with Instance Based Cluster option highlighted and both cluster types described.\]](http://docs.amazonaws.cn/en_us/documentdb/latest/developerguide/images/create-cluster/cluster-type.png)
**Note**
The other option in this category is **Elastic cluster**. To learn more about Amazon DocumentDB elastic clusters, see [Using Amazon DocumentDB elastic clusters](docdb-using-elastic-clusters.md)
1. In the **Cluster configuration** section:
1. For **Cluster identifier**, enter a unique name, such as **mydocdbcluster**. Note that the console will change all cluster names into lower-case regardless of how they are entered.
1. For **Engine version**, choose **5.0.0**.
![\[Configuration form for a database cluster with fields for identifier and engine version.\]](http://docs.amazonaws.cn/en_us/documentdb/latest/developerguide/images/create-cluster/cluster-config.png)
1. In the **Cluster storage configuration** section, choose **Amazon DocumentDB Standard** (this is the default option).
![\[Storage type selection with Amazon DocumentDB Standard option highlighted and both storage types described.\]](http://docs.amazonaws.cn/en_us/documentdb/latest/developerguide/images/create-cluster/cluster-storage.png)
**Note**
The other option in this category is **Amazon DocumentDB I/O-Optimized**. To learn more about either option, see [Amazon DocumentDB cluster storage configurations](db-cluster-storage-configs.md)
1. In the **Instance configuration** section:
1. For **DB instance class**, choose **Memory optimized classes (include r classes)** (this is default).
The other instance option is **NVMe-backed classes**. To learn more, see [NVMe-backed instances](db-instance-nvme.md).
1. For **Instance class**, choose **db.t3.medium**. This is eligible for the Amazon free trial.
1. For **Number of instances**, choose **1** instance. Choosing one instance helps minimize costs. If this were a production system, we would recommend that you provision three instances for high availability.
![\[Configuration form for a database instance with fields for the DB instance class, the supported instance class, and the number of instances.\]](http://docs.amazonaws.cn/en_us/documentdb/latest/developerguide/images/create-cluster/instance-config.png)
1. In the **Connectivity** section, leave the default setting of **Don't connect to an EC2 compute resource**.
![\[Connectivity settings for database with options to connect or not connect to an EC2 compute resource.\]](http://docs.amazonaws.cn/en_us/documentdb/latest/developerguide/images/create-cluster/cluster-connectivity-no-ec2.png)
1. In the **Authentication** section, enter a username for the primary user, and then choose **Self managed**. Enter a password, then confirm it.
If you instead chose **Managed in Amazon Secrets Manager**, see [Password management with Amazon DocumentDB and Amazon Secrets Manager](docdb-secrets-manager.md) for more information.
![\[Authentication type selection with Managed in Amazon Secrets Manager option highlighted and both authentication types described.\]](http://docs.amazonaws.cn/en_us/documentdb/latest/developerguide/images/create-cluster/cluster-auth-self.png)
1. Leave all other options as default and choose **Create cluster**.
Amazon DocumentDB is now provisioning your cluster, which can take up to a few minutes to finish.
**Note**
For information about cluster status values, see [Cluster status values](monitoring_docdb-cluster_status.md#monitoring_docdb-status_values) in the Monitoring Amazon DocumentDB chapter.
## Step 2: Connect to your cluster
Connect to your Amazon DocumentDB cluster using Amazon CloudShell.
1. On the Amazon DocumentDB management console, under **Clusters**, locate the cluster you created. Choose your cluster by clicking the check box next to it.
![\[Amazon DocumentDB cluster management interface showing a regional cluster with primary instance details\]](http://docs.amazonaws.cn/en_us/documentdb/latest/developerguide/images/cluster-connect-cloud-shell.png)
1. Click **Connect to cluster** (which is next to the **Actions** dropdown menu). This button is enabled only after you have clicked the checkbox next to your cluster, and the status of both the regional cluster and primary instance(s) show as **Available**. The CloudShell **Run command** screen appears.
1. In the **New environment name** field, enter a unique name, such as "test" and click **Create and run**. VPC environment details are automatically configured for your Amazon DocumentDB database.
![\[Cluster cluster CloudShell Run command screen requesting new environment name\]](http://docs.amazonaws.cn/en_us/documentdb/latest/developerguide/images/ec-gs-run-command.png)
1. When prompted, enter the password you created in Step 1: Create an Amazon DocumentDB cluster (sub-step 7).
![\[Cluster CloudShell screen requesting user password\]](http://docs.amazonaws.cn/en_us/documentdb/latest/developerguide/images/ec-gs-cs-password.png)
After you enter your password and your prompt becomes `rs0 [direct: primary] >`, you are successfully connected to your Amazon DocumentDB cluster.
**Note**
For information about troubleshooting, see [Troubleshooting Amazon DocumentDB](https://docs.amazonaws.cn/documentdb/latest/developerguide/troubleshooting.html).
## Step 3: Insert and query data
Now that you are connected to your cluster, you can run a few queries to get familiar with using a document database.
1. To insert a single document, enter the following:
```
db.collection.insertOne({"hello":"DocumentDB"})
```
You get the following output:
```
{
acknowledged: true,
insertedId: ObjectId('673657216bdf6258466b128c')
}
```
1. You can read the document that you wrote with the `findOne()` command (because it only returns a single document). Input the following:
```
db.collection.findOne()
```
You get the following output:
```
{ "_id" : ObjectId("5e401fe56056fda7321fbd67"), "hello" : "DocumentDB" }
```
1. To perform a few more queries, consider a gaming profiles use case. First, insert a few entries into a collection titled `profiles`. Input the following:
```
db.profiles.insertMany([{ _id: 1, name: 'Matt', status: 'active', level: 12, score: 202 },
{ _id: 2, name: 'Frank', status: 'inactive', level: 2, score: 9 },
{ _id: 3, name: 'Karen', status: 'active', level: 7, score: 87 },
{ _id: 4, name: 'Katie', status: 'active', level: 3, score: 27 }
])
```
You get the following output:
```
{ acknowledged: true, insertedIds: { '0': 1, '1': 2, '2': 3, '3': 4 } }
```
1. Use the `find()` command to return all the documents in the profiles collection. Input the following:
```
db.profiles.find()
```
You will get an output that will match the data you typed in Step 3.
1. Use a query for a single document using a filter. Input the following:
```
db.profiles.find({name: "Katie"})
```
You get the following output:
```
{ "_id" : 4, "name" : "Katie", "status": "active", "level": 3, "score":27}
```
1. Now let’s try to find a profile and modify it using the `findAndModify` command. We’ll give the user Matt an extra 10 points with the following code:
```
db.profiles.findAndModify({
query: { name: "Matt", status: "active"},
update: { $inc: { score: 10 } }
})
```
You get the following output (note that his score hasn’t increased yet):
```
{
[{_id : 1, name : 'Matt', status: 'active', level: 12, score: 202}]
```
1. You can verify that his score has changed with the following query:
`db.profiles.find({name: "Matt"})`
You get the following output:
```
{ "_id" : 1, "name" : "Matt", "status" : "active", "level" : 12, "score" : 212 }
```
## Step 4: Explore
Congratulations\$1 You have successfully completed the Get started guide for Amazon DocumentDB instance-based clusters.
What’s next? Learn how to fully leverage this database with some of its popular features:
+ [Managing Amazon DocumentDB](https://docs.amazonaws.cn/documentdb/latest/developerguide/managing-documentdb.html)
+ [Scaling](https://docs.amazonaws.cn/documentdb/latest/developerguide/operational_tasks.html)
+ [Backing up and restoring](https://docs.amazonaws.cn/documentdb/latest/developerguide/backup_restore.html)
**Note**
The cluster you created from this get started exercise will continue to accrue costs unless you delete it. For directions, see [Deleting an Amazon DocumentDB Cluster](https://docs.amazonaws.cn/documentdb/latest/developerguide/db-cluster-delete.html).