A Few Words About ‘NoSQL’ and Other Unstructured Databases

“Carlo Strozzi coined the term NoSQL (“Not only SQL”) in 1998,
referring to a lightweight database that did not expose a SQL
interface. In 2009, Eric Evans of Rackspace dredged up the term and
its meaning was still being debated by its coiner while organizing
an event with Johan Oskarsson of Last.fm to discuss the growing
number of non-relational distributed data stores.

“No one likes this term. Attempting to describe something by
what it isn’t typically doesn’t work — and, to make matters
worse, this is about data-store relationships and not about SQL at
all. Yet NoSQL databases have significant advantages,
including:

* Seemingly infinite scalability (Facebook is using Cassandra to
store and query 50TB of user inbox data).
* Extraordinary fault tolerance.
* High availability.
* A design-friendly lack of schema.
* Integration of both RESTful and cloud computing technologies.

“Disadvantages revolve around a basic fact: These are not
relational databases built to rapidly process transactions, perform
error checking, and maintain data integrity.”

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