February 18th, 2013 — Data management
Redshift goes GA. Pivotal’s Google in a box. And more.
And that’s the data day, today.
February 14th, 2013 — Data management
TempoDB’s timely DBaaS for the Internet of Things. ScaleBase 2.0. And more
And that’s the data day, today.
February 13th, 2013 — Data management
Some of the NoSQL vendors seemed to have stirred up a mild controversy with their reactions to the launch of NoSQL access to InnoDB in MySQL 5.6 and their suggestions that NoSQL access is only a part of the NoSQL story.
Mark Leith, software development senior manager at Oracle has described the criticism as laughable and Oracle’s director of MySQL product marketing, Mat Keep, accused the NoSQL vendors of “trying to stand on the shoulders of giants” (which is pretty ironic given we are talking about Oracle adding NoSQL capabilities to one of its databases).
In any case I don’t see what the fuss is all about.
Sure, Couchbase and DataStax laid it on a bit thick, but these are corporate blog posts – it goes with the territory.
Besides while it might seem churlish to criticise NoSQL access to InnoDB in MySQL 5.6 for not being a document database or for enabling masterless multi-datacenter replication, the responses are valid in the context of hyperbolic claims that “MySQL can provide the best of both worlds… You don’t have to split your data and manage two databases.”
The caveat to all these claims, and indeed probably any claim ever made in a corporate blog, is “if it suits your particular application requirement.”
Back in early 2011 when we first considered the momentum behind NoSQL development and adoption we highlighted six key drivers:
- Scalability
- Performance
- Relaxed consistency
- Agility
- Intricacy
- Necessity
How many of those are addressed by key value access to the InnoDB storage engine? Query performance and agility, certainly. Necessity, perhaps – but only if your application workload requires both SQL and key value access.
As we stated when Oracle first began previewing key value access to the InnoDB storage engine:
“Support for data access using the memcached API by no means alleviates the need for NoSQL alternatives, but it will provide additional flexibility and agility for existing MySQL adopters.”
I also have to agree with Couchbase that this is a point that is illustrated by the existence of Oracle’s own NoSQL Database. As we stated at the time of its launch:
“The launch of Oracle NoSQL is… a clear indication that there are trends at work here that cannot be solved by adding non-SQL querying to existing relational databases.”
And that’s really all Couchbase and DataStax are pointing out.
If you’re looking for an offering that provides direct, key value insertion and querying of data in addition to SQL-based access to relational database tables, then MySQL 5.6 is clearly a leading contender. If that’s all you’re looking for, then you could arguably forget the need to manage two databases.
That clearly doesn’t necessarily make MySQL 5.6 suitable for use as a pure key value store, let alone a document database, or wide-column store, or graph database. If those are your requirements, MySQL 5.6 isn’t the best of any world, let alone both.
February 12th, 2013 — Data management
ClearStory sheds light on data analysis service. Illuminating ‘dark data’. More.
And that’s the data day, today.
February 11th, 2013 — Data management
On February 21, at 10:00am PST / 1:00pm EST, I’ll be taking part in a webinar – How to Take Advantage of NewSQL in the Cloud – in conjunction with Clustrix.
In this free webinar I, along with Mark Sarbiewski, Clustrix CMO, will discuss:
- The current cloud database inflection point – and how that affects you and your company
- How to migrate your SQL database to the cloud
- How to get effortless scale from your database in public or private clouds
- How to ensure database availability in the cloud for business critical applications
For full details and registration, click here.
February 8th, 2013 — Data management
Teradata results. Funding for DataXu. The chemistry of data. And more.
And that’s the data day, today.
February 8th, 2013 — Data management
One of the most complicated aspects of putting together our database landscape map was dealing with the growing number of (particularly NoSQL) databases that refuse to be pigeon-holed in any of the primary databases categories.
I have begun to refer to these as “multi-model databases” in recognition of the fact that they are able to take on the characteristics of multiple databases. In truth though there are probably two different groups of products that could be considered “multi-model”:
True multi-model databases that have been designed specifically to serve multiple data models and use-cases
Examples include:
FoundationDB, which is being designed to support ACID and NoSQL, but more to the point in this instance, multiple layers including key-value, document, and object layers
Aerospike, which is planning to combine SQL, key value, and document and graph database technologies in a single database by bringing together its Citrusleaf NoSQL database with the acquired AlchemyDB NewSQL project
OrientDB, which is, at heart, a document database, but can also be used as a graph database; as an object database, making use of the Java persistence API; and as a hybrid database, taking advantage of multiple models to serve different application requirements
ArangoDB, which promises to deliver the benefits of key value and document and graph stores in a single database
Other products that could be considered true multi-model databases are:
Couchbase Server 2.0, which can be used as both a document store and a key value store, as well as a distributed cache
Riak, which is a key-value store, although it can be used as a document store since the value can be a JSON document
NuoDB, which will provide compatibility with other databases by taking on multiple ‘personalities’ – an Oracle personality via PL/SQL compatibility is in the development roadmap, as is a document store personality via JSON support.
General-purpose databases with multi-model options
What’s the difference between multi-model databases and existing general-purpose databases that have optional capabilities for serving multiple models? My book book it’s about being designed for purpose, but I’m sure that will be a debating point for the future. In the mean-time, examples include:
Oracle MySQL 5.6, which can support both SQL-based access and key-value access via the Memcached API.
Oracle MySQL Cluster 7.2, which similarly supports concurrent NoSQL and SQL access to the database.
IBM DB2 10, which extends DB2′s hybrid relational and XML engine to enable the storage and management of graph triples, as well as support for the SPARQL 1.0 query language.
Akiban Server, which has the ability to treat groups of tables as objects and access them as JSON documents via SQL.
PostgreSQL h-store, which can be used for storing key-value pairs within a PostgreSQL data field, thereby enabling schema-less queries against data stored in PostgreSQL
We are also aware of other NewSQL database that plan to adopt support for popular NoSQL data models, while IBM has also talked about plans to integrate key value store NoSQL access capabilities with DB2 and Informix database software.
Other products that could be considered multi-model options include:
Oracle Spatial and Graph, an option for Oracle Database 11g.
One of the drivers of NoSQL database adoption has been polyglot persistence – using multiple databases depending on the specific requirements of individual applications. Multi-model databases contradict this trend, to some extent, so it will be interesting to see whether they begin to gain traction.
While we see the wisdom of selecting the best database for the job, we also recognise that it could sometimes be a matter of choosing the best data model for the job, while relying on a single storage back-end.
February 6th, 2013 — Data management
Oracle launches MySQL 5.6. IBM expands PureData line. And more
And that’s the data day, today.
February 4th, 2013 — Data management
Fedora confirms MariaDB plans. IBM acquires Star Analytics. And more
And that’s the data day. today.
February 4th, 2013 — Data management
I have no real intention of turning our Database Landscape Map into something that is updated on a monthly basis, but there were a number of significant modifications and additions to the original December 2012 version that I wasn’t able to address for our January 2013 update for 451 clients.
So here, then, is the February 2013 version:
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