NoSQL Database - Manage ever growing Big Data set with speed and performance
The NoSQL or 'Not Only SQL' is a database system for managing the today's growing database which is ranging from small size to many TB's or more. The NoSQL databases supports the horizontal scaling and provides a fine control over the data access. It is different from the relational database system and does not support the tabular database format. Instead it support both structured and non-structured data in the key-value, graph, or document formats.
NoSQL database is not suitable for the application requiting the transactions and the atomicity (e.g. ACID property). So, as per your problem you should select the database NoSQL or any RDBMS. The NoSQL is suitable for managing the huge data set which requires the horizontal scaling, high performance and speedy access but no ACID support.
These due to horizontal scaling and support for the Big Data management with speed, the NoSQL is becoming popular in real-time web applications. The NoSQL is called as "Not only SQL" and it also support SQL-like query, which is good for fetching the selective data.
The main concept of the NoSQL is the distributed databases, where unstructured data is stored across multiple processing nodes and usually on the multiple servers. The distributed architecture of the NoSQL databases allows it to be horizontally scaled as data grows. You just need to add few more hardware's without no downtime or performance degradation. So, NoSQL makes the computing and management of huge data much user friendly.
What are the Benefits of NoSQL?
Here are few great benefits of the NoSQL database management system.
Elastic scaling
Now if you have to increase the performance of the data due to increase in the data, then you jut have to add few more computers(Nodes/servers) and the NoSQL database management system will start using the new nodes. This way you don't have to buy the high end server to increase the performance of you system. Earlier in case of RDMBS you need more powerful servers to increase the performance of the database server as data increases.
Huge Data Handling
With the NoSQL database you can handle huge data sets, it supports both structured and unstructured data sets. You use the Hadoop for handling the data on thousands of servers with little or no reduction in the performance of the system.
Cheaper Maintenence
For maintaining the high end RDBMS you need highly trained skill set and it is only done by the highly trained DBAs. But the maintenance of the NoSQL database is cheaper as most of the features like replication, automatic repair, data distribution etc. are handled automatically by the NoSQL database server. So, NoSQL is cheaper to use and maintain.
Less Investments in Servers
Since the NoSQL database is distributing the data across the multiple servers (nodes) and its performance is high, data maintenance cost in case of NoSQL is very less as compared to the RDBMS cost.
Easy change management
If you have to change the structure of a table in a big database system on any RDBMS then this going to be a big work and involves the downtime. But since NoSQL is based on the No Schema database concept you an add more fields (keys) while adding the data and there is no downtime or any performance issues.
Integrated Caching support
NoSQL comes with the caching support and it cache the data in the memory thus providing huge performance. If you have to implement the cache in RDBMS then you need different infrastructure.
Limitations of the NoSQL
The NoSQL provides lots of features, but it also has few limitations. Here are the limitations of the NoSQL Database:
- NoSQL does not provide the support for the ACID transactions
- Consistency issues - It NoSQL is not used effectively it might end up with the consistency issue as NoSQL first focuses on the performance issue and later on the consistency.
- Lack of Maturity - As compared to the relational database it is still un-matured
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