A Common NoSQL Query Language
Couple of days ago I was posting about pros and cons of working on a (new) common query language for document databases. On the other hand, Hans Marggraff has generalized this question when ☞ writing:
NoSQL databases lack a common query language, that can provide the basis for a vendor independent tool ecosystem.
I should probably confess that over a year ago, I was asking for the same things when publishing the alternative data storage status quo.
Meanwhile I have understood that there are probably better ways to deal with the NoSQL custom query space:
- avoiding as much as possible running reports on live servers and using specialized/dedicated solutions for it (Tekpub is using both MongoDB and MySQL to deal with this normal scenario and they feel very strong about this separation)
- high level languages or tools can be built to work with your reporting and datawarehouse. And I’m referring here to Hadoop, Pig and Cascalog. Just to get an idea of what I mean check these awesome presentations on Hadoop, Pig and Cascalog from a Hadoop meet-up showcasing their usage at Twitter, BackType, and others.
Somehow as a confirmation to these approaches, Quest Software has launched yesterday Toad for Cloud[1] a tool that supports querying data over different NoSQL solutions by providing an indirection layer that interfaces with native NoSQL querying capabilities. You can see more about this tool in the videos posted on their website.
So, I’d say there’s no need for a common (artificial) NoSQL query language. We are already seeing tools dealing with the different APIs and I’m pretty sure more will come.
