Many people think NoSQL is a derogatory term created to poke at SQL.
In reality, the term means Not Only SQL.
The idea is that both technologies can coexist and each has its place.
An exabyte is equal to one billion gigabytes (GB) of data.
According toInternet.com, the amount of stored data added in 2006 was 161 exabytes.
Interconnected Data:Data continues to become more connected.
Major systems are built to be interconnected.
Complex Data Structure:NoSQL can handle hierarchical nested data structures easily.
To accomplish the same thing in SQL, you would need multiple relational tables with all kinds of keys.
In addition, there is a relationship between performance and data complexity.
What is NoSQL?
I guess one way to define NoSQL is to consider what it is not.
It’s not SQL and it’s not relational.
Like the name suggests, it’s not a replacement for an RDBMS but compliments it.
NoSQL is designed for distributed data stores for very large scale data needs.
Think about Facebook with its 500,000,000 users or X which accumulates Terabits of data every single day.
In a NoSQL database, there is no fixed schema and no joins.
An RDBMS “scales up” by getting faster and faster hardware and adding memory.
NoSQL, on the other hand, can take advantage of “scaling out”.
Scaling out refers to spreading the load over many commodity systems.
This is the component of NoSQL that makes it an inexpensive solution for large datasets.
NoSQL Categories
The current NoSQL world fits into 4 basic categories.
NoSQL databases do not provide a high-level declarative query language like SQL.
Instead, querying these databases is data-model specific.
Many of the NoSQL platforms allow for RESTful interfaces to the data.
Other offer query APIs.
There are a couple of query tools that have been developed that attempt to query multiple NoSQL databases.
These tools typically work across a single NoSQL category.
One example is SPARQL.
SPARQL is a declarative query specification designed for graph databases.
Apparently, the concept isn’t getting as much traction in smaller organizations.
In a survey conducted by Information Week, 44% of business IT professionals haven’t heard of NoSQL.
Further, only 1% of the respondents reported that NoSQL is a part of their strategic direction.
