FOSDEM 2010: The Raise of the NoSQL initiative

What’s NoSQL?

Even if the name is really meaningless, the NoSQL defines a new generation of Key/value pair storage. This initiative is gaining popularity but also maturity. The FOSDEM dedicated a complete day and dev. room for this subject. The wikipedia definition defines this movement as: “NoSQL is an umbrella term for a loosely defined class of non-relational data stores that break with a long history of relational databases and ACID guarantees. Data stores that fall under this term may not require fixed table schemas, and usually avoid join operations. The term was first popularised in early 2009. Trends in computer architectures are pressing databases in a direction that requires horizontal scalability. NoSQL-style data stores attempt to address this requirement. Prominent closed-source examples are Google‘s BigTable and Amazon‘s Dynamo. Several open-source variants exist including Facebook‘s Cassandra, Apache HBase, LinkedIn‘s Project Voldemort and many others.”

Continue reading