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NoSQL ≠ open source

January 11th, 2012 | | Data management

I thought we finished with trying to define NoSQL in 2010 but Martin Fowler has raised the question again with his recent post – although he has a good reason to do so since he is collaborating on a book on the subject.

Fowler’s list of common characteristics (which he acknowledges is not definitional) is as follows:

  • Not using the relational model (nor the SQL language)
  • Open source
  • Designed to run on large clusters
  • Based on the needs of 21st century web properties
  • No schema, allowing fields to be added to any record without controls

    • You could argue about whether all NoSQL databases are designed to run on large clusters, but the characteristic from the list above that I would dispute is open source.

    While it is undoubtedly true to say that most NoSQL databases are open source, I don’t believe it defines them in the same way that other common characteristics do.

    The main argument for making open source licensing a requirement of NoSQL seems to me to be historical. The first NoSQL meeting, cited by Fowler, specified that it was about “open source, distributed, non-relational databases”.

    However, making open source licensing a defining characteristic of NoSQL would also exclude a number of products that would otherwise clearly fit the definition of NoSQL, as well as projects such as Google’s BigTable and Amazon’s Dynamo which were the genesis of much – although by no means all – of the momentum behind the NoSQL database movement.

    For the sake of argument let’s assume Amazon decided to release a version of Dynamo that could be deployed on-premise and for whatever reason decided not to release “Dynamo-on-premise” under an open source license.

    Is anyone seriously going to argue that a closed source “Dynamo-on-premise” wouldn’t be a NoSQL database?

    For what it’s worth since our NoSQL, NewSQL and Beyond report the description of NoSQL I have been using is:

  • A new breed of non-relational database products
  • sharing a rejection of fixed table schema and join operations
  • designed to meet scalability requirements of distributed architectures
  • and/or schema-less data management requirements

    • Although, like Fowler I would not claim this to be a definition.

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    2 comments ↓

    #1 mark on 01.11.12 at 12:42 pm

    Two questions:

    1. Why non-relational given that most of them have added functions to relate data using subsets of relational theory? Hive and HQL, CQL, MQL, etc.

    2. Why rejection of join operations since every one of them has been forced to add joins or proxies? (basically secondary access paths to facilitate query when they provide only a single key lookup, or #1 above)

    #2 Matthew Aslett on 01.11.12 at 3:00 pm

    Mark,

    Good points well made – which is why the definition of NoSQL will continue to evolve and eventually become redundant

    Matt