Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
Consistency and its varying forms, strong and weak, were analyzed and eventual consistency was
proposed as a viable alternative for higher availability under cases of partitioning.
Strong consistency advocates have often declined to consider NoSQL databases seriously due to
its relaxed consistency confi gurations. Though consistency is an important requirement in many
transactional systems, the strong-or-nothing approach has created a lot of fear, uncertainty, and
doubt among users. Hopefully, this chapter laid out the choices explicitly for you to understand.
Last but not the least, although the chapter explained eventual consistency, it didn't necessarily
recommend it as a consistency model. Eventual consistency has its place and should be used where
it safely provides high availability under partition conditions. However, you must bear in mind that
eventual consistency is fraught with potential trouble. It's neither trivial nor elementary to design
and architect applications effortlessly to work under the eventual consistency model. If transactional
integrity is important and the lack of it can severely disrupt normal operations, you should adopt
eventual consistency only with extreme caution, fully realizing the pros and cons of your choice.
