On Tuesday 02 March 2010 19:07:21 walt wrote: > On 03/02/2010 04:23 AM, Arttu V. wrote: > > On 3/2/10, walt<[email protected]> wrote: > >> This article was a big surprise to me. Am I the last one to hear about > >> this stuff? > >> > >> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10461670-16.html?part=rss&subj=new > >> s&tag=2547-1_3-0-20 > > > > If you're expecting a discussion then perhaps you'd care to narrow it > > down a bit: which part of the article are we expected to feel > > surprised about? > > I was surprised that three major social networking sites have dumped > MySQL (but now the article says only two sites). I've also not heard > of the "NoSQL" movement before, and I'm curious to know what's motivating > it. Maybe nobody trusts Oracle?
Because Codd's relational database model, as implemented by Oracle, Sybase, PostgreSQL, MSSQl and a slew of others, is not the only way to model a data storage system (aka database). In much the same way that a bakkie with a canopy is not the only way to transport workers, as buses do exist. Relational databases are demonstrably mathematically correct, but like all things they have their limits to how far they can scale. More often than not, this limit is imposed by how fast the db engine can access and identify data using the hardware upon which it is built. Traditional RDBMSes don't even vaguely scale to the levels Facebook runs at. The NoSQL movement is nothing more than an effort to find other ways of extracting data having consciously ditched SQL for the job. By way of example (this is not NoSQL per se, it illustrates the point), Google's data extraction methods are not even remotely SQL. Heck, they aren't even completely correct, they are merely "good enough". See what happens when you dump the old mind-set and look at fresh new ideas? Oftentimes you get something that works better than the old way. Google does not care that their search results are not 100% spot on, they are good enough for your query. If other stuff that they missed deserves to be higher in the ratings, it will climb higher over time till it does show. Considering the size of Google, this is a very workable approach. -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com
