Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 4-2.
Applicability of OldSQL, NewSQL, and NoSQL
The vertical axis in Figure 4.2 indicates complexity of data structure. A single table
is less complex than the star schema and the snowflake schema structures that one often
sees in data warehouses. These are simpler than a third normal form (TNF) relational
schema. Nested data, graph data, and other forms of complex data structures represent
an increasing complexity of data structures.
It is easy to place OldSQL and NewSQL databases on this diagram. Both cater to all
of the data structures up to the snowflake schema models. The distinction between the
two categories of product is simply in their ability to scale up to very high volumes of data.
The OldSQL databases, built for single server or clustered environments, have a limit to
their scalability. Most NewSQL databases, designed for queries over high data volumes,
provide little or no support for OLTP, but their scale-out architectures offer good support
for data volumes up to the Petabyte level.
As soon as we enter the diverse schema models, NoSQL databases come into the
picture. It includes products like
key-value pair databases, graph databases, document
databases
, etc. Such databases are built to support extremely large sparse tables and the
JOIN
is superfluous to the intended workloads.
