2014 Big Data Outlook: Opportunities and Challenges
Looking to combine the best real-time attributes of NoSQL databases, DataStax this week unveiled a DataStax Enterprise 4.5 database platform that combines Cassandra with the Apache Spark in-memory computing engine.
Announced at the Spark Summit 2014 conference, DataStax Enterprise 5.4 is the latest iteration of a commercially supported open source Cassandra database that provides a NoSQL alternative to traditional relational databases.
The Apache Spark project is an in-memory cluster of servers that accelerates the performance of analytics applications accessing data stored in Hadoop.
Seema Haji, director of product marketing for DataStax, says that Cassandra and Spark provide complementary real-time engines that can be used in conjunction with each other to give developers a NoSQL database platform where analytics can be applied in real time against transactions.
Cassandra has been gaining a fair amount of momentum because it allows organizations to process large amounts of data. Beyond the NoSQL name, organizations can actually use SQL alongside a number of other languages to program both Cassandra and Hadoop without having to manage all the complexity normally associated with managing relational databases at scale.
It’s hard to say with certainty that Cassandra and Spark have enough momentum to usurp relational databases. But the two together and separately have the potential to be a database force to be reckoned with for years to come.
