NoSQL

NoSQL databases are a different beast from the traditional Relational Database Management System (RBDMS) approach.

A NoSQL databases has the following attributes:-

• Works with non relational data, or a mix of relational and non relational. E.g. unstructured text, JSON, XML
• Is schema agnostic, so you can load in data whose variety changes over time
• Uses commodity hardware, so you can add multiple cheap servers to support large volumes of data or higher velocity of data ingestion and query
• Uses a language other than SQL for data query, could be custom (Cassandra CQL), or open standards based (W3C SPARQL), or search based discovery (MarkLogic /v1/search REST endpoint)

NoSQL for Dummies by Adam Fowler, Feb 2015 Buy NoSQL for Dummies: Amazon Kindle Paperback

The State of NoSQL 2016 ***NEW*** by Adam Fowler, Feb 2016. Available soon on Amazon Kindle and compatible devices!

Many NoSQL databases have open source variants, but for reasons I cover in NoSQL For Dummies, their feature set means you’ll need to buy the ‘Enterprise’ version for mission critical workload deployments – making them no different from buying commercial software.

There are many commercial-only NoSQL players, including Hypertable, MarkLogic, and Franz (AllegroGraph). These vendors have rich feature sets and customer doing heavy duty, mission critical workloads on NoSQL databases.

NoSQL information

For further information on NoSQL you can read on this site:-

• NoSQL vs. Enterprise NoSQL
• There are different flavours of NoSQL. I cover each type, and also provide a useful vendor cheat sheet quick reference on their technical aspects, free to download!
  • Key-Value stores
  • Wide column stores (aka Bigtable clones)
  • Document databases
  • Triple and Graph stores
  • Hybrid
• There are also related technologies that apply NoSQL architecture, including Search engines
• Buy NoSQL For Dummies!

Blog posts on NoSQL

You can view all my blog posts about NoSQL. Try starting with those below:-

• Why use a NoSQL database, and why not?
• What is NoSQL food for?
• Also I found a good background on why you want NoSQL – an independent review of NoSQL and MarkLogic
• NoSQL modelling for a relational brain
• Some of My thoughts on NoSQL and Big Data architecture
• And of course, Go NoSQL Style!