Benefits of NoSQL databases like MongoDB, Cassandra etc

1. D H A R S H A N R A N G E G O W D A
F O U N D E R , S C A L E G R I D . I O
A P R I L 2 0 1 4
Why NoSQL?

2. What is NoSQL?
 “Not only SQL”
 “Not SQL”
 Term popularized by Eric
Evans of Rackspace in 2009
 Class of databases that don’t
use a “Relational schema”
 NoSQL <> No T-SQL

3. NoSQL history
 Need arose in Early 2000 due to difficulties scaling
MySQL databases
 Need to deal with large amounts of data
 E.g. MongoDB founders are from Doubleclick

4. Classification
• Classified along
multiple dimensions
• Data model
• Consistency
• Performance

5. Complete classification

6. Data model
 Flexible data model
 structured, unstructured & semi structured data
 Different types of data
 JSON/XML
 Documents
 Files
 Store files & structured data
 No separate workflow for files

7. Schema less
 Each row in a table can be different!
 Double edged sword
 There is always a schema, in the db or in the code

8. Developer agility
Focus on developer
agility
 Extremely easy to get
started
 Got rid of impedance
mismatch between
app code and SQL
 Always work with
objects
• Big hit with developers

9. Developer agility
 Great Geo query support
 Extremely important for most web apps today
 Great integration with new frameworks
 Node.js, Meteor.js

10. Database Scaling
• Easy (relatively) scale for your database
– Scale up or scale out
– Scale out using commodity servers
– Automatic partitioning & rebalancing

11. Scale out : MongoDB shards

12. Cons?
 Not ACID compliant (mostly)
 Transaction scope is usually limited
 Consistency can also vary
 If you are writing a banking application stick to RDBMS 
 Engineering
 Relatively immature
 Don’t have 3 decades of engineering in them

13. Adoption
• Web properties
– Scale features
– Document support
– Geo support
• Data warehouse
– Handle TB’s of data
– Cost

14. Future?

15. Q & A
Email : Dharshanr@scalegrid.io
Twitter: @dharshanrg