Actual applications make the use of database shift: growing workloads, strong variations of the query amount, speed and scalability required… To answer this trend, NoSQL, for Not Only SQL, database management systems have emerged. Those solutions offer capacities and benefits SQL databases don’t; In particular, they answer specific needs thank to atypical and innovative features, and manage extreme scalability on very large data sets.

It’s not always easy for a company to identify the NoSQL solution that fits best its requirements. What’s more, since this technology is still young, skills and knowledge about use and support are not so common.

We created afterSQL, our service offer, to offer expertise on all those matters thanks to services split between 3 main domains: NoSQL Expertise, NoSQL support and NoSQL Training.

For Ori Pekelman, af83’s CTO, “When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail… But NoSQL requires this first: do not see every issue like nails. More than a technology or a set of technologies, it’s a methodological approach, a way to see software architecture.”

From this particular perspective, “when you choose a database, you mustn’t think only in terms of performance, or scalability, and even less of x or y existing feature. You have to consider tools availability, development costs as well as operation management and disaster recovery…”

For people still undecided about whether they should adopt NoSQL or not, he says: “Just because some database work wonders for Facebook doesn’t mean that it suits every use. But when SQL database doesn’t answer properly to your situation, when you’re dependent on the ability to sustain quickly growing workloads, NoSQL solutions suit your requirements. I think that prudence isn’t antonym with courage and innovation. It’s not cautious to fiddle with “good old tools” when they’re inappropriate. Being cautious is to choose the right tool in a controlled situation”.

Join afterSQL on its website to get more details on the offered services. If you want to know more about NoSQL, read our point of view on Scale, the af83 place for reflection on state of art technologies.