by Jeffrey Walker
| Apr 09, 2015
NoSQL is a technical term that means either “No SQL” or “Not only SQL” and represents a paradigm shift away from sole reliance on relational databases. Relational databases (RDMS) emerged in the 1970s and were based on a set of data tables that could be queried and matched based on languages like SQL. These database architectures were ‘structured’ meaning that the data was organized in a uniform format and varied little over time. On the other hand, NoSQL operates on the premise of the Key-Value Pair (KVP) – a framework where each record has a primary key and a collection of values (bins) associated with that record.
NoSQL databases have grown rapidly in popularity over the last several years and the market outlook is great. In fact, NoSQL has emerged as the preferred choice for mobile and web development. Estimates suggest that by 2020 the digital universe will grow to 40,000 exabytes, or 40 trillion gigabytes (more than 5,200 gigabytes for every man, woman, and child). All of this data will be fueled by new innovations, inventions, and trends, including the massively popular Internet of Things. What this all means on the ground is that businesses need to start looking seriously into how to ramp up their NoSQL strategy.
In the following, we draw further on these insights and outline 5 clear ways that NoSQL can significantly grow your business in today’s competitive digital marketplace.
1. NoSQL moves your database beyond 70s technology
Granted many business applications today rely on relational DBs and these systems are great at processing structured data, the reality is they are ill-equipped to deal with multivariate and unstructured types, which forms the crux of much of today’s Big Data. Running data in tables with key-value joins and querying in SQL isn’t going to meet your needs for agile, quick, and fast data processing needed by most competitive organizations today. NoSQL, on the other hand, brings your data management into the 21st century, drawing on more efficient ways to meet the challenges of the “three V’s” (volume, variety, and velocity) of today’s ginormous data sets.
2. NoSQL scales easily across servers, cloud instances, and virtual machines
The humongous volumes of data today, along with the growing complexity of physical, virtual, and cloud environments, require a new approaches to managing and wrangling this data and making it available in real-time to high-expectant customers. NoSQL databases are by design built to scale horizontally, which means that they can easily distribute data across a cluster of server instances. This scalability also makes NoSQL easily integrated into the elastic scaling of the cloud. Ease of deployment and management make NoSQL a good match for today’s virtualized environments; this means less need to worry about hardware and more time to focus on software, strategy, and performance.
3. NoSQL increases competitive advantage & ROI
There are any number of applications for NoSQL data storage and processing solutions today, ranging from user profile stores, to ecommerce sites, to mobile applications. Netflix is one high profile example of a major organization that migrated from Oracle to the NoSQL database Cassandra to help it better stream huge amounts of content to millions of customers worldwide each day. Given the exploding volume and types of data, more and more organizations are finding that NoSQL offers new approaches to data performance as well as IT management. These new paradigms are translating into numerous improved efficiencies, optimizations, and cost savings. In fact, a growing number of market examples show organizations using NoSQL technology to increase their competitive advantage and overall ROI.
4. NoSQL are great for small business
The ability to deliver high-volume, high-variety online applications for a fraction of the cost that it took with traditional methods, is also one of the reasons why NoSQL technologies are an appealing solution for smaller organizations with limited budgets. And don’t forget, NoSQL is entirely open-source, which generally means increased reliability, better security, and greater speed of deployment. The top NoSQL databases on the market, such as MongoDB, MarkLogic, Couchbase, CloudDB, and Amazon’s Dynamo DB, have all emerged with robust, scalable, cloud-based solutions that allow for rapid processing of real-time Big Data applications – all for a very affordable cost.
5. NoSQL is riding a strong market wave
The NoSQL market is a formidable one with projected growth forecast to reach $3.4 Billion in 2020, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21% for the period 2015 – 2020. And a number of leading NoSQL, such as Couchbase, MongoDB, Amazon, MarkLogic, etc. are leveraging agreements with leading application industry players like Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Flipkart to keep growing the market. These trends . . . along with the massive data expected from Internet of Things, means that business leaders would be well advised to look seriously at NoSQL and start taking measures to adopt the latest benefits of this technology.
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