My Thoughts on the NoSQL Database “Tea Party” Post | Kellblog

A timely and constructive reality check from Dave Kellogg; excerpt:

In the end, when it comes to NoSQL I am trying to:

• Provide an overview of why I think people are considering and/or using NoSQL solutions

• Provide good background references and readings (see bottom of my first post)

• Remind mangers to keep an eye out for the “bad reasons” to go NoSQL — i.e,. coolness and Google wannabeism

• Remind people not to confuse NoSQL with NoDatabase.  Special-purpose databases (e.g., MarkLogic) are optimized for specific applications (e.g., semi-structured data) and handle them far better than a general-purpose RDBMS.  So in your haste to move off Oracle, don’t advance directly to an open source key-value store; there might be alternative DBMSs that meet your needs more effectively.

• Remind people not to confuse NoSQL with NoCommercialSoftware.  While people seem to dislike when I say it, the RDBMS market is an oligopoly and the big vendors’ pricing, margins, and heavy-handed customer relationships are all consistent with that market structure.  But you can find other classes of commercial software where the vendors are hungrier and more customer centric.

My Thoughts on the NoSQL Database “Tea Party” Post | Kellblog