Microsoft SQL Server, NoSQL, and the in-memory database wars are the highlights among this year’s headlines.
Fuggedabout Hadoop. Databases are still the backbone of transactional and analytical applications, they usually stoked big reader interest in 2013. But times are changing, with a brand new breed NoSQL database and, ironically, the need for SQL querying on top of Hadoop being big themes this year.
Measuring by the yardstick of page views — that’s admittedly skewed toward juicy headlines and Internet search-engine-ranking algorithms — here’s my personal number of top database headlines in 2013:
1. Microsoft SQL Server 2014: Final Countdown
The top-selling database by volume (Oracle tops revenue) has plenty of fans. This story looks under the hood of the second one community technology preview (beta) release to explain the in-memory capabilities and other new features expected with the subsequent release inside the first half 2014.
2. Why NoSQL Databases Are Gaining Fans
The headline captures it. Need we are saying more?
3. MetLife Uses NoSQL For Customer support Breakthrough
Were you thinking NoSQL databases will be only a passing fad among Internet giants? It turned plenty of heads when this mainstream insurance company tapped MongoDB to unravel the age-old 360-degree customer view problem. This story makes the case for freedom from the confines of rigid relational data models.
4. Oracle’s Ellison Tries To Outmaneuver SAP Hana<
If you cannot beat ’em, join ’em. Larry Ellison takes the wind out of SAP’s Hana sails (and, he hopes, sales) with the announcement that Oracle Database, too, will support in-memory processing. But he didn’t say when this new Oracle 12c In-Memory Option would arrive.
5. Cloudera Impala Brings SQL Querying To Hadoop<
If only Hadoop could act more like a database. Now it may, as a result of Impala, and this was just the primary of many SQL-on-Hadoop announcements in 2013.
6. Inside IBM’s Big Data, Hadoop Moves
Forget the headline. IBM’s biggest news of just today was the discharge of BLU Acceleration for DB2, which employs a slew of compression, query acceleration, and in-memory analysis techniques previously seen here and there, but never before combined to this degree of success.
7. When NoSQL Makes Sense
Practical uses case for these flexible, scalable databases.
8. Oracle OpenWorld: 5 Rants and Raves<
Rant #1: Larry Ellison pre-announcing the Oracle 12c In-Memory Option without release data or roadmap. He’s still talking as though it exists, but in late December he revealed it might be beta within the second 1/2 2014 and shipping late within the year. But then, what percentage years did he say Oracle Fusion was coming?
9. Amazon Debuts Low-Cost, Big Data Warehousing Option
The ParAccel database engine goes cloud as Amazon RedShift.
10. Teradata Joins SQL-On-Hadoop Bandwagon
Partnering with Hortonworks, data-warehousing leader Teradata finds how to query the world’s largest data warehouse and the world’s largest Hadoop clusters.
The past is prologue, so expect more headlines on Microsoft SQL Server 2014, NoSQL, and in-memory and cloud database options in 2014. Happy New Year!
Doug Henschen is executive editor of InformationWeek, where he covers the intersection of enterprise applications with information management, business intelligence, big data and analytics. He previously served as editor-in-chief of Intelligent Enterprise, editor-in-chief of Transform Magazine, and executive editor at DM News.
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