I wrote a couple of times about Quest Software’s Toad for Cloud^[1], the free Eclipse tool that allows connecting to NoSQL databases and working with data in a tabular, SQLish format. But having in mind Quest’s business, there was something bugging me about Quest’s initiative: why would they make these tools? Even more, why would they make them available for free?

I think I got an answer to these questions. One area of expertise of Quest Software is represented by relational databases management tools. If offering these free tools would make it easy to see all data as tabular once again, moreover would make it easy to move it back to relational database, then Quest Software’s database management tools will continue to sell well and also enter the NoSQL databases market.

This is somehow similar to what Cloudera is doing for Hadoop: creating an ecosystem that enables everyone to important data into Hadoop. As long as more companies are using Hadoop, the more chances are Cloudera’s business will prosper.

Original title and link: NoSQL databases, Quest Software, and Toad for Cloud (NoSQL databases © myNoSQL)

Jeremiah Peschka put together two short videos demoing Toad for Cloud Eclipse plugin with Hive and HBase. Those complaining about lack of SQL in NoSQL databases should check it out. On a different note though, I did express a few concerns about such a tool related to the complexity and performance of building the indirection layer and supporting operations that are not native to target system. I’d add to these the fact that some NoSQL databases are continuously adding features that can radically change the way this tool performs (e.g. Cassandra 0.7 will feature secondary indexes).

Hive and Toad for Cloud

HBase and Toad for Cloud

Looking at how slow the tool performs and the fact that it doesn’t have any sort of results pagination seems to be a confirmation of some of the concerns expressed above. On the other hand it is kind of difficult to understand a tool by just watching a video.

Original title and link: Hive and HBase in Toad for Cloud Demo (NoSQL databases © myNoSQL)

When talking if a common query language for NoSQL databases would make sense, I’ve mentioned an interesting initiative from Quest Software, ☞ Toad for Cloud, that, through an indirection layer, would provide a SQL interface to NoSQL databases. There are still lots of open technical questions about such a tool, but I hope to clarify them shortly.

Today, Quest is releasing a new version of Toad for Cloud which features support for Cassandra, adding it to a list of already supported NoSQL databases like HBase, Amazon SimpleDB, and Microsoft Azure Table Service.

But that’s not all, as Quest Software and Riptano are also announcing a technology alliance with the goal of promoting Cassandra inside the enterprise market. Together they will conduct researches to determine the needs for specialized Cassandra tools (e.g. monitoring, diagnosis, ETL, et.c) that would make Cassandra appealing to this market.

Original title and link for this post: Riptano and Quest Partnership for Cassandra (published on the NoSQL blog: myNoSQL)