10gen has never been shy about their plan: replacing MySQL. That’s a bold goal considering Oracle is now behind MySQL. But this could also make things a bit easier for 10gen.

Anyways, what made me write this separate post is the realization of how close 10gen is following the MySQL path:

1. release early and incomplete. Enhance over time
2. position the product as the developer friendly and fast
3. introduce an enterprise edition once your adoption overpassed that of your immediate competitors.

I guess I already know how it’ll end: $2 billion acquisition from a company that gets acquired by Oracle.

While the official announcement of MongoDB 2.4 version mentioned just in passing the “MongoDB Enterprise” version, other websites didn’t leave this aspect aside. Actually it’s what got emphasized about the today’s announcement. In case you wonder what’s the the 10gen’s enterprise box: Kerberos-based security and an on-premise version of the MongoDB Monitoring Service.

The only question I have now is how soon Oracle will start looking into acquiring 10gen. Or how soon it will dedicate marketing and sales resources to directly address 10gen.

Original title and link: 10gen’s MongoDB Following the Steps of MySQL (NoSQL database©myNoSQL)

According to GigaOm, Rackspace has acquired MongoDB hosting provider ObjectRocket, of which I’ve heard about only recently when I learned something absolutely fascinating:

The cloud is broken. It’s not designed to properly run persistent data stores like MongoDB. ObjectRocket is designed from the ground up to fix this problem.

Rackspace first thing to do after signing the docs is to take this page out.

Original title and link: Rackspace Buys MongoDB Hosting Provider ObjectRocket (NoSQL database©myNoSQL)

MarkLogic has been around for a while. I don’t have any details about how their business is doing, but attention wise, I’m pretty sure they’d love to get a slice of what younger NoSQL database get.

In the last few weeks, I got the impression there’s a change of voice in MarkLogic’s message.

The first sign: “Playtime with MongoDB is Over. Upgrade to MarkLogic Enterprise NoSQL.“:

When playtime is over and it is time to seriously support the needs of your enterprise, the clear choice is to upgrade to MarkLogic Enterprise NoSQL. (We even have a Mongo2MarkLogic converter tool that speeds the import of data from MongoDB into MarkLogic so you can start using MarkLogic’s integrated search and enterprise features faster.)

To be clear, the post calls our Cassandra, MongoDB, Riak and HBase.

Second sign: “Get Your Facts Straight: We’ve Had Enterprise-Grade Security Longer“:

DataStax put out a press release today claiming that with their new release of DataStax Enterprise 3 they were the “World’s First NoSQL Big Data Platform With Comprehensive Enterprise-Grade Security.”

We’d like to set the record straight. MarkLogic has had Enterprise-grade security for well over 10 years. So, while I won’t make the claim that we were first — I certainly won’t accept that DataStax was first either.

Both these posts are bold. I like that. What I don’t like though is the aggressive and dismissive tone. That might bring you attention, but not the type that comes with new users.

Original title and link: MarkLogic’s New (Aggressive) Voice (NoSQL database©myNoSQL)

Jan Lehnardt posted a long reply to my comments on the State of CouchDB. I thought many would benefit from promoting it to a real post (with Jan’s permission). Before handing it over to Jan, I want to thank him for taking the time to clarify some of the things. I also want to be clear that I still stand by all my comments. Now, to Jan Lehnardt:

Hey Alex,

you are of course correct and I stand by my post. Let me explain the discrepancy.

The post is a summary of my notes for my opening talk of CouchDB Conf that I ran in Berlin in January. The target audience are the people in the actual audience. There are people who build CouchDB, people who help out with CouchDB, people who use CouchDB and a few people who want to know what’s up with CouchDB. By and large though, these are what I’d call “CouchDB People”.

You interpret the post as if it were for a general public audience and it is entirely my fault making that not more clear in the opening of my post.

To your notes:

• Confusion: spot on, our bad, mistakes were made, it’s gonna take time to get sorted.

• passive aggressive style: sorry if that read this way, it was definitely not intended. It was to highlight that there are people who absolutely love what CouchDB does. It isn’t a statement about quantities, which your note about “your numbers” implies. I’m not interested in discussing numbers, but I understand that people have turned away for good reasons. — Consider being an enthusiast, and you go to a conference of like-minded people and the project lead gives a talk and says, “people like you are passionate”. “Fuck yeah I am passionate” you think, or say, and get a good vibe going at the conference. (For CouchDB fans, it was really good times).

• list of features: good stuff on there, but none of that matters until it ships. This is for people on the inside to see what we are working towards and get them rallied up to help and contribute. You assessment that the “real” features are in the gist is misguided, but I chalk that up to differing opinions, no harm done.

• *ouch projects: hell yeah I am excited to finally fulfil the original promise of CouchDB from fucking six years ago. The thing to highlight here isn’t that “boo a bunch of things that rhyme with ouch”, but that we are starting to see a production-ready ecosystem of a true open source data sync solution that bloody works. — I agree with you that branding/communication is key here, and that there is a lot to be done.

• facts matter / “came out on top: nope”: again spot on, but this is where I really wished you had given me shout before posting this. Maybe next time, you should still have my number. Your assessment that we did not come out on top is completely correct, if you look at it from a general public point of view. It’d be odd to deny the facts. But again, this isn’t meant as a post that says “hey everyone, look how great CouchDB is doing”, because a) CouchDB isn’t and b) the intended audience is not everybody. What I did meant to point out that the open source project is aware of the challenges it is facing and is doing its utmost to set everything up so things can be resolved. We spent twelve months in relative obscurity preparing many things that are starting to see the light of day now, but most of it in the future. Only when we delivered on all of that, we can look at the facts again and see how CouchDB is doing. I am confident that it’ll look good, but there is a lot to be done until then. The “coming out on top” is a comment on that the core of the project and its community are strong, and that we are in a position to turn the boat back to former and further glory and not that we are somehow deceived by our own filter bubble and believe that all is well when it isn’t.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to explain things. I think your assessment of CouchDB in general of the past years has been spot on and your current criticisms are also accurate and well received, it’s just that you got the intended audience for my post wrong, which I didn’t make very clear to the casual observer.

Original title and link: The State of CouchDB - Jan Lehnardt’s Comment (NoSQL database©myNoSQL)