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.
Teradata results. Funding for DataXu. The chemistry of data. And more.
And that’s the data day, today.
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.
Oracle launches MySQL 5.6. IBM expands PureData line. And more
And that’s the data day, today.
Fedora confirms MariaDB plans. IBM acquires Star Analytics. And more
And that’s the data day. today.
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:
Note: the latest update to the map is available here.
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