rdbms

Are databases in the cloud really all that different?

Last week a discussion emerged in regards to the necessity of the NoSQL moniker associated with a new wave of open-source distributed database projects like CouchDB, MongoDB and Cassandra.

CouchOne, the commercial entity behind CouchDB even announced that it's moving away from associating the company with NoSQL as focuses on enabling offline data and applications.

The current orthodoxy would have you believe that if you are trying to get your head around "big data" or "Web scale" (see video), NoSQL is the answer. If you are dealing with preset data definitions being accessed by all … Read more

Cloudera teams up to connect Oracle and Hadoop

This week Cloudera, a provider of software and services for the Apache Hadoop project, is set to announce a partnership with Quest Software to develop, support, and distribute an Oracle connector for Hadoop.

Hadoop is the popular open-source implementation of MapReduce, a powerful tool designed for deep analysis and transformation of very large data sets. It enables its users to explore complex data, using custom analyses tailored to users' information and questions.

Code-named "Ora-Oop," the connector will provide connectivity between Cloudera's Hadoop distribution and Oracle through an interface that allows for bidirectional, scalable, and functional data transfer … Read more

NoSQL and the future of cloud databases

One of the cloud-related trends that developers have been paying attention to lately is the idea of "NoSQL," a set of operational-data technologies based on nonrelational technology.

These technologies do not replace the relational database but rather add a new tool to the developer toolbox. Business intelligence database technologies such as Aster Data, Greenplum, Neteeza, and Vertica do not completely replace the traditional relational database but rather use nonrelational databases to augment the software.

RedMonk analyst Stephen O'Grady wrote recently that NoSQL "adoption was inevitable because, just as in every other walk of life, there are … Read more

Microsoft and FathomDB target 'relational' clouds

There were two very interesting pieces of news to come out in the last week related to the availability of relational databases in the cloud. One involved a start-up you have almost certainly never heard of, and the other involves a major player in on-premise database products.

The first was an announcement to the crowd at "Whose Cloud is It Anyway?"--a "roundtable and meet-up" sponsored by TechCrunch, held Friday on Microsoft's Mountain View, Calif., campus.

(Charles Cooper has more on the "roundtable" portion of the program. My favorite part of the afternoon was the fun comment by Salesforce.com CEO Mark Benioff; he noted the irony of hosting a cloud-computing meeting at the facilities of the vendor most disrupted by the trend.)

During the "pitch" section of the afternoon, Justin Santa Barbara of start-up FathomDB announced that the company has released to beta testing a sort of virtual managed hosting service for "standard relational databases" running on Amazon.com's Elatic Compute Cloud, or EC2, service. (There is a video of the afternoon's pitches; FathomDB starts at about 49:30.)

The start-up's current service simply allows someone to get a basic relational database management system, or RDBMS, instance (initially MySQL) up and running in minutes under its management, with services including creation, monitoring, and backup.… Read more