Unfortunately the title of this post is nonsensical. NoSQL isn’t any one thing, it’s a broad spectrum of emerging technologies. NoSQL could be used to describe just about any data store that isn’t a traditional database, and it turns out there are many flavours of databases.
I haven’t used any NoSQL product personally but I have the answers to some important questions:
Are these database systems proven and used in large scale productions?
Do they provide advantages over traditional RDBMS’s?
In some cases they are very interesting, in others there is debate as to whether they’re the right tool for the job.
Do they scale as well?
Scalability is often touted as a an advantage of NoSQL, and of course there are those that dissagree.
A light technical introduction to the different types of NoSQL databases
How well does PHP support these systems?
The popular ones seem to have native support and there are some interesting projects out there taking advantage of the movement.
NoSQL and Me
Will I be using NoSQL in my next project? Probably not but it sure is interesting to see what people are doing with it.
