Wednesday, November 10, 2010

There has been a lot of interest lately in NoSQL databases and, of course, many of us have strong backgrounds and experience in traditional relational “SQL” databases. For application developers this raises questions concerning the best way to go.

One recurring truth that eventually surfaces with all new software technologies is that “one size does not fit all.” In other words, you need to use the right tool for the job, as each has its own strengths and weaknesses. In fact, a danger of many new architectural approaches is one of “over-adoption” – using a given tool to address a wide array of situations when originally they were designed for the specific problem domain in which they excel.

Therefore, the right answer to the question of whether to use a “SQL or NoSQL?” database is: “it depends.” The best solution for your application may be a traditional SQL database, a NoSQL database, or possibly a mix of both. Each technology has its own areas of use, and the best recommendation is to investigate specific products to meet your specific needs. It’s also important to consider your existing investment in what you have that is functional and proven, working out ways to preserve that investment while extending into new ways of doing things for improved application performance and capabilities.

To read our full article published in Database Trends and Applications, please visit the link below:

http://www.dbta.com/Articles/Editorial/Trends-and-Applications/SQL-or-NoSQL3f-How-to-Choose-the-Right-Database-for-Your-Application-71240.aspx

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

HighScalability recently sat CEO Cory Isaacson down for an in-depth interview about dbShards. This excellent article explains exactly how dbShards works, and how it can be applied to your business to drastically increase your databases performance, scalability and reliability. The full article can be found here: http://highscalability.com/blog/2010/7/13/dbshards-part-deux-the-internals.html