by Angela Guess
Roger du Mars recently wrote, “As unstructured data becomes more tangible, more manageable and more valuable, the spheres of SQL and NoSQL will necessarily expand their common ground. The Hadoop ecosystem, as DeWitt gleefully observed, incorporates substantial SQL components. Both Hive, a Hadoop-based data warehouse developed by Facebook, and Pig, a Hadoop-based language developed by Yahoo, are semi-declarative and are distinctively “SQL-like.” This is no idle distinction, DeWitt said; of Facebook’s 150,000 daily jobs, only 500 run on MapReduce. The remainder runs on Hive. Another notch in the belt for SQL.”
He continued, “The gulf between SQL and NoSQL can resemble the divide between liberals and conservatives. The mindsets are different, the priorities near opposite. SQL is the conservative father, meticulous and reliable. NoSQL is the young son, carefree, fast and flexible. Founder of Athena IT Solutions Rick Sherman said the two sides typically don’t enjoy the other’s type of work. ‘Mutual co-existence is the way it is,’ he said. Perhaps this divide will impede innovation of next-generation database.”
photo credit: Steve Snodgrass
