Ten top noSQL Databases

We live in a data driven world in which we are generating, storing and analyzing more information than ever before, and at an ever-increasing speed.

Traditional “relational” databases – which store information in neat hierarchies of rows and columns aren’t suited for the big, messy datasets harvested from video, audio and even social media data streams that are needed for today’s Big Data projects.

This is where noSQL databases become very handy. These newer database formats are designed to be far more scalable and with less limits on the types of data they can store and retrieve. Designed from the start to handle data distributed across thousands or millions of networked nodes, they are popular with those needing lighting-fast access to huge, messy datasets for real-time analysis.

So here’s my run down, in no particular order, of some of the best known and most widely used noSQL databases available today, and the companies which provide them.

Oracle NoSQL – Oracle’s relational database system was pioneering and is still widely used for many purposes in businesses of all sizes. Oracle applied its pragmatic business sensibilities when entering the market created by newer upstart competitors. The focus was on reliability and scalability, in order to persuade giants of industry and finance to put their trust in emerging Big Data technologies.

DynamoDB  (Amazon Web Services) – Amazon provides DynamoDB as part of its commercial Amazon Web Services package. Built specifically to handle fast, constantly growing volumes of data in all shapes and sizes, it is provided as a “managed” service and has proven particularly popular with business users needing access to reliable cloud-enabled infrastructure, real-time analytics and scalability.

Apache HBase (MapR-DB)  – As well as their own custom Hadoop installation, MapR Technologies provide their own NoSQL database, which is based on the open source Apache HBase database architecture. It is provided free of charge, in the hope that users will pay for support, or go on to use other paid-for MapR products.

MongoDB (Mongolab)  – Mongo Lab is a commercial, software-as-a-service (SaaS) implementation of MongoDB, one of the most popular open source NoSQL databases. MongoDB is used to store the datasets which make up some of the biggest web businesses such as eBay and Craigslist.

Google Cloud BigTable  – BigTable is Google’s proprietary database system which powers, among many other things, its online services including the web index used by Google search, Google Maps and Gmail.