What does NoSQL mean? NoSQL and Not Only SQL is a technique to data management and database design that implements a key-value store, document store, column store or graph format for data. NoSQL solution is an approach to data management and data design which proves to be useful for very large sets of distributed data. For last three decades, the relational database has been the dominant model for database management. But today NoSQL databases are gaining popularity as an alternative model for database management. NoSQL solution provides a great flexibility in terms of data storage and access.

NoSQL Databases

In the world of database technology, there are two types of databases: SQL and NoSQL. In other words relational and non-relational databases. The difference between SQL and NoSQL solution is due to information they store, storage technique and how they are built. Relational databases are structured, like phone books that store phone numbers. Whereas Non-relational databases are document-oriented and distributed like folders which store all the information. There are a lot of NoSQL database available in the market in which some of are open source and some of are licensed. MongoDB, Apache Cassandra, CouchDB, HBase, Hypertable, Riak, and Oracle NoSQL are the most popular NoSQL solution in today’s database technology.

Why Choose NoSQL Solution

As I told earlier that NoSQL databases are non-relational databases. Therefore if your data requirements are not clear or you are dealing with massive amounts of unstructured data then you should go for NoSQL solution. NoSQL databases provide greater flexibility and there is no need to define the database schema. NoSQL databases are document oriented, therefore, non-structured data such as blogs, articles can be stored in a single document. But storing data in the majority like this requires extra processing effort and more storage than highly organized SQL data. NoSQL databases offer another major advantage with its ease of access. Application developers can access the data through APIs without having to learn the SQL.

Types of NoSQL Databases

Key-value stores: Key-value stores are the simplest NoSQL data stores which implement a simple data model that pairs a unique key with an associated value. The client can either get the value for the key, put a value on a key, or delete a key from the data store through the API. Examples are Cassandra, Azure, Redis, LevelDB, Berkeley DB and Riak.

Document databases: Document databases also called as document stores, which stores semi-structured data. In this type of database has its own data, and own unique key, which is used to retrieve it back. Examples are MongoDB, CouchDB.

Wide column stores: It stores data tables as columns rather than rows. Wide column stores can be found both in SQL and NoSQL databases. A wide-column data store used in recommendation engines, catalogs and fraud detection. Examples are HBase, BigTable, HyperTable.

Graph stores: Graph data stores organize data as nodes. Graph databases allow you to store entities and relationships between these entities. Examples are AllegroGraph, IBM Graph, Neo4j, and Titan.

Conclusion

As NoSQL databases are becoming an increasingly important part of the database technology. If the NoSQL solution used appropriately then it gives you real benefits. If you look out for NoSQL solution then you can click here and thanks for reading 🙂