Last night, (Tuesday, June 28), at the KC .NET User group meeting, George Westwater gave a terrific presentation on NoSQL. The best way to define it (the best way is to see George explain it, and he says he will record his presentation and make it available through his blog – link above) is databases that does not use relational technology. And his point, and this is true – I have been around awhile – is that non-relational databases have been used for over 50 years in the business. He points out that Wall Street firms have been using non-relational technology ever since they started using computers. IBM still fully supports IMS, now in version 11 (12 is in beta), because these firms are still using this product and will continue to do so for a long time.
Of course, like a lot of computer business technology, there are a lot of new NoSQL products available these days, simply as a reaction to the problems of scaling relational databases for internet use. As a result, it almost looks as though NoSQL is something new. And there are a lot, I mean a LOT, I mean a L-O-T , of new products out there for this technology. The best resource to cover all of these products is http://nosql-database.org/, which has a huge listing of what is available.
My interest in the subject is primarily due to my interest in Windows Azure and the fact that Windows Azure storage is all non-relational, even the table storage. It is very fascinating and most of all, far cheaper than using SQL Azure for storage in the “cloud."
