Cloud databases, or database on the cloud?

As 2012 came to a close I tweeted

NuoDB has today kicked off that debate with the launch of its Cloud Data Management System and 12 rules for a 21st century cloud database.

NuoDB’s 12 rules appear pretty sound to me – in fact you could argue they are somewhat obvious. This is actually to NuoDB’s credit in my opinion, in that they haven’t simply listed 12 differentiating aspects of their product, but 12 broader requirements.

Either way, I believe that this is the right time to be debating what constitutes a “cloud database”. Database on the cloud are nothing new, but these are existing relational database products configured to run on the cloud.

In other words, they are databases on the cloud, not databases of the cloud. There is a significant difference between spinning up a relational database in a VMI on the cloud versus deploying a database designed to take advantage of, enable, and be part of, the cloud.

To me, a true cloud database would be one designed to take advantage of and enable elastic, distributed architecture. NuoDB is one of those, but it won’t be the only one. Many NoSQL databases could also make a claim, albeit not for SQL and ACID workloads.

This isn’t a matter of SQL versus NoSQL, however. We’ve seen companies building their own next-generation database platforms deploying NoSQL and SQL technologies alongside each other for different workload and consistency requirements. Where the SQL layer falls down is the inability of existing relational databases to support elastic, geographically distributed cloud environments.

NuoDB believes it has a solution to that. So too do others including GenieDB, Translattice and VMware. Meanwhile Google’s F1 and Spanner projects have legitimized the concept of the globally-distributed SQL database.

Either way, the era of the relational cloud database – rather than the relational database on the cloud – has begun.

The Data Day, Two days: January 9/10 2013

SAP on HANA. Funding for Guavus and ScaleArc. And more

And that’s the Data Day, today.

Our 2013 Database survey is now live

451 Research’s 2013 Database survey is now live at http://bit.ly/451db13 investigating the current use of database technologies, including MySQL, NoSQL and NewSQL, as well as traditional relation and non-relational databases.

The aim of this survey is to identify trends in database usage, as well as changing attitudes to MySQL following its acquisition by Oracle, and the competitive dynamic between MySQL and other databases, including NoSQL and NewSQL technologies.

There are just 15 questions to answer, spread over five pages, and the entire survey should take less than ten minutes to complete.

All individual responses are of course confidential. The results will be published as part of a major research report due during Q2.

The full report will be available to 451 Research clients, while the results of the survey will also be made freely available via a
presentation at the Percona Live MySQL Conference and Expo in April.

Last year’s results have been viewed nearly 55,000 times on SlideShare so we are hoping for a good response to this year’s survey.

One of the most interesting aspects of a 2012 survey results was the extent to which MySQL users were testing and adopting PostgreSQL. Will that trend continue or accelerate in 2013? And what of the adoption of cloud-based database services such as Amazon RDS and Google Cloud SQL?

Are the new breed of NewSQL vendors having any impact on the relational database incumbents such as Oracle, Microsoft and IBM? And how is SAP HANA adoption driving interest in other in-memory databases such as VoltDB and MemSQL?

We will also be interested to see how well NoSQL databases fair in this year’s survey results. Last year MongoDB was the most popular, followed by Apache Cassandra/DataStax and Redis. Are these now making a bigger impact on the wider market, and what of Basho’s Riak, CouchDB, Neo4j, Couchbase et al?

Additionally, we have been tracking attitudes to Oracle’s ownership of MySQL since the deal to acquire Sun was announced. Have MySQL users’ attitudes towards Oracle improved or declined in the last 12 months, and what impact will the formation of the MariaDB Foundation have on MariaDB adoption?

We’re looking forward to analyzing the results and providing answers to these and other questions. Please help us to get the most representative result set by taking part in the survey at http://bit.ly/451db13

The Data Day, Two days: December 18/19 2012

GenieDB, Qubole, EdgeSpring, CouchDB, and more

And that’s the Data Day, today.

NoSQL LinkedIn Skills Index – December 2012

Time again to take a look at our NoSQL LinkedIn Skills Index, based on the number of LinkedIn member profiles mentioning each of the NoSQL projects. This is the first update since we rebooted the analysis in September to account for more products and refine our search terms.

NoSQL_Dec

On the face of it not a lot has changed in the last quarter, although there are a few interesting statistics to pick out. For instance, Neo4j is now practically tied for sixth place with MarkLogic and can be expected to overtake it in Q1 2013. Outside the top ten shown above, Apache Accumulo has gained two places – overtaking Aerospike and Hypertable.

In fact, Apache Accumulo showed the fastest rate of growth in mentions between September and December, just ahead of DynamoDB and OrientDB, followed by Couchbase and MongoDB.

MongoDB’s growth means that it has cemented its place as the most popular NoSQL database, according to LinkedIn profile mentions. As the chart below illustrates, it now accounts for 45% of all mentions of NoSQL technologies in LinkedIn profiles, according to our sample, compared with 43% in September.

nosql_all_dec

New 451 Research report: Total Data Analytics

451 Research’s Information Management practice has published its latest long-format report: Total Data Analytics. Written by Krishna Roy, Analyst, BI and Analytics, along with myself, it examines the impact of ‘big data’ on business intelligence and analytics.

The growing emphasis on ‘big data’ has focused unprecedented attention on the potential of enterprises to gain competitive advantage from their data, helping to drive adoption of BI/analytics beyond the retail, financial services, insurance and telecom sectors.

In 2011 we introduced the concept of ‘Total Data‘ to reflect the path from the volume, velocity and variety of big data to the all-important endgame of deriving maximum value from that data. Analytics plays a key role in deriving meaningful insight – and therefore, real-world business benefits – from Total Data.

In short, big data and Total Data are changing the face of the analytics market. Advanced analytics technologies are no longer the preserve of MBAs and ‘stats geeks,’ as line-of-business managers and others increasingly require this type of analysis to do their jobs.

Total Data Analytics outlines the key drivers in the analytics sector today and in the coming years, highlighting the technologies and vendors poised to shape a future of increased reliance on offerings that deliver on the promise of analyzing structured, semi-structured and unstructured data.

The report also takes a look at M&A activity in the analytics sector in 2012, as well as the history of investment funding involving Hadoop, NoSQL and Hadoop-based analytics specialists. It also contains a list of 40 vendors we believe have the greatest potential to shape the market in the coming years.

The report is available now to 451 Research clients, here. Non-clients can get more information and download an executive summary from the same link.

Updated database landscape graphic

One of the most popular pieces I have produced since joining 451 is not a research report or presentation but the database landscape graphic that accompanied our NoSQL, NewSQL and Beyond report.

We’ve seen it crop up in other presentations and websites – sometimes even with attribution 😉

We actually updated the image to accompany our more recent report MySQL vs. NoSQL and NewSQL: 2011-2015 but I realised that I haven’t made that newer version more generally available. So here it is:

We wouldn’t claim it to be perfect. There’s a whole new breed of data platform-as-a-service providers that have emerged in recent months that will need to be added, if we can find space for them.

Meanwhile there are a group of database vendors that have also emerged that don’t easily fit into the segments we’ve created: companies like Drawn to Scale, FoundationDB, Aerospike and Splice Machine.

But since the original graphic continues to be popular, I thought I’d share the latest iteration as well. Any feedback always welcome

The Role of NoSQL and Graphs in the Total Data Landscape

I’ll be flying over to San Francisco at the weekend to attend and present at GraphConnect, which takes place at the Hyatt Regency on November 5 and 6.

Specifically, I’ll be giving a presentation on the role of NoSQL and graphs in the total data landscape, subtitled Big Data, Total Data, NoSQL, Graph, at 11.40am on November 6.

Here’s the overview: The database market is changing rapidly with new approaches emerging that provide an alternative to the relational data model. This presentation examines the drivers behind the rise of NoSQL data stores and, in particular graph databases, focusing on their use-cases and adoption trends, and exploring where graph database fit in the world of NoSQL, NewSQL, and big data.

I’ll also be moderating a panel at 5.05pm on November 6 comprised of enterprise companies that use graph databases in production. This panel includes 3-4 technical leads from Accenture, Cisco and Telenor Norway that will discuss what it takes to put large scale graph databases into production.

GraphConnect looks like a great event for anyone with experience with, or just interest in, graph databases. Keynotes will be provided by Emil Eifrém, CEO, Neo Technology, and James Fowler, co-author of Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives.

The full agenda can be found here, and it’s not too late to register, here.

Forthcoming webinar: Choosing a Next-Gen Database

On Tuesday, November 13 at 12pm ET I’ll be taking part in a webinar in association with ScaleBase on the subject of Choosing a Next-Gen Database: The new world order of NoSQL, NewSQL & MySQL.

With the database market becoming increasing complex and changing on an almost daily basis, I’ll be providing an overview of this ever-changing market: discussing the benefits and drawbacks of NoSQL, NewSQL & MySQL databases and exploring real-life use cases for each.

Joining me will be Doron Levari and Paul Campaniello, both from ScaleBase, who will be discussing specific use cases of ScaleBase’s Data Traffic Manager, which is designed to enable next generation applications that require big data transactional processing, without changing the existing infrastructure.

For full details, and to register for the event, click here.

The Data Day, Two days: September 27/28 2012

Quantcast launches HDFS alternative. Glassbeam eyes funding. And more.

And that’s the Data Day, today.