How to get started with NoSQL?

Since 2009 NoSQL databases becomes more and more popular. But why?

• No usage of SQL, that means
  • Less complexity
  • Better portability
  • Boundlessness
  • User-friendliness
• Most databases are Open-Source
• Performance
• Scalability

Famous companies like Twitter, Facebook and Amazon are using NoSQL databases.
What sorts of NoSQL databases are used today?

• Key-Value stores
  • Easy to implement
  • Only key-value-pairs can be stored
  • Difficult to build complex data structures
• Column stores
  • Columns don't have to be defined in advance.
  • A row can have different numbers of cells
• Document stores
  • Like key-value stores, but allows nested values
• Graph databases
  • Objects and relationships are modelled and persisted as nodes and edges of a graph

What NoSQL databases are present today?

• Cassandra
  • Data Model: Columnfamily
  • Query API: Thrift
• CouchDB
  • Data Model: Document
  • Query API: map/reduce views
• HBase
  • Data Model: Columnfamily
  • Query API: Thrift, REST
• MongoDB
  • Data Model: Document
  • Query API: Cursor
• Neo4j
  • Data Model: Graph
  • Query API: Graph
• Redis
  • Data Model: Collection
  • Query API: Collection
• Riak
  • Data Model: Document
  • Query API: Nested hashes
• Scalaris
  • Data Model: Key/value
  • Query API: get/put
• Tokyo Cabinet
  • Data Model: Key/value
  • Query API: get/put
• Voldemort
  • Data Model: Key/value
  • Query API: get/put

.NET APIs

Cassandra

• FluentCassandra
  • https://github.com/managedfusion/fluentcassandra
  • http://nuget.org/List/Packages/FluentCassandra
  • http://coderjournal.com/2010/06/your-first-fluent-cassandra-application/

CouchDB

• SharpCouch
  • http://code.google.com/p/couchbrowse/source/browse/trunk/SharpCouch/SharpCouch.cs

MongoDB

• MongoDB Driver
  • http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Drivers
  • http://www.nuget.org/List/Packages/MongoDB.Driver

Tokyo Cabinet

• TokyoTyrant.NET
  • http://tokyotyrant.codeplex.com/

Further Reading

A good introduction to the concepts of NoSQL is the paper "NoSQL Databases" from Christof Strauch.
Also read the "Scalable SQL and NoSQL Data Stores" from Rick Cattell.

See Also

• Wiki: Development Portal (en-US)

Other Languages

This article is also available in the following languages:

Deutsch (de-DE)

• Arbeiten mit NoSQL-Datenbanken (de-DE)

Italian (it-IT)

• Lavorare con database NoSQL (it-IT)