In-Memory: Speeding Up Value by Using Operational Intelligence
With the rise of NoSQL databases, IT organizations now frequently face the challenge of having to manage multiple SQL and NoSQL databases, which is a problem that seems to get worse every time a developer decides to create a new application.
To help IT organizations streamline the management of those databases, FoundationDB created a multi-model NoSQL database based on a key/value store architecture capable of supporting transaction processing applications. The basic idea, says FoundationDB CEO Dave Rosenthal, is to give database administrators the ability to layer a SQL database on top of the same infrastructure being used by a NoSQL database. Going into 2105, Rosenthal says FoundationDB will add a document database layer, thereby allowing IT organizations to consolidate the two major types of NoSQL databases with its existing SQL Layer technology.
While developers often select the type of NoSQL database they want an application to run on, Rosenthal notes that DBAs are looking for ways to bring some order to the chaos that database administration has become. By delivering the ability to support multiple types of databases using a common platform, Rosenthal says IT organizations can make more efficient use of their IT infrastructure investments.
Not only does that approach reduce the cost of the IT infrastructure needed to support all those databases, it allows those organizations to take advantage of the inherent fault-tolerant capabilities that FoundationDB built into its platform, says Rosenthal.
Because FoundationDB supports RESTful APIs and a wide variety of clients and programming languages, most applications will run on top of its database. From an operational perspective, the real challenge in 2015 will be finding a way to simplify the management of all those applications and the databases on which they run.
