smartTrade Blog

Mariano Vazquez explains how to configure MongoDB replica sets on Microsoft Azure and how that works:

• MongoDB will run the native binaries on a worker role and will store the data in Windows Azure storage using Windows Azure Drive (basically a hard disk mounted on Azure Page blobs)
• The good thing about using Azure Storage is that the data is georeplicated. It will also make backup easier because of the snapshot feature of blob storage (which is not a copy but a diff).
• It will use the local hard disk in the VM (local resources in the Azure jargon) to store the log files and a local cache.
• You can scale out to multiple Mongo Replica Sets by increasing the instance count of the MongoDB role

Original title and link: Using MongoDB Replica Sets With Node.js on Microsoft Azure: NoSQL Tutorials (NoSQL database©myNoSQL)

While we’re on the topic of investors: 2011 was a big year for funding, according to the latest MoneyTree report (authored quarterly by PWC and the National Venture Capital Association, via GigaOm). VCs invested $28.4 billion in 3,673 deals in 2011. That’s 22% more cash than 2010. Many…

Here’s the abstract of the patent filing submitted by MapR’s for a Map-Reduce Ready Distributed File System:

A map-reduce compatible disitrubuted file system that consists of successive component layers that each provide the basis on which the next layer is built provides transactional read-write…

Neo4j getting a JDBC driver before MongoDB is a surprise^[1]. Rickard Öberg:

When it comes to NOSQL databases, one of the key advantages is that they allow you to structure your data in a way that better resembles your domain, and also allows you to use query languages where you can express things that are either really awkward or slow with SQL. However, one of the advantages that relational databases have is that they can be accessed from lots of tools using JDBC, as a standard API. So what would happen if a NOSQL database, like Neo4j, also had a JDBC driver? I decided to find out!

If this catches up, the next step is adding a non-HTTP protocol to Neo4j server.

Original title and link: Neo4j Gets Experimental JDBC Driver (NoSQL database©myNoSQL)

Riyad Kalla:

I have been reading up on log structured file systems, efficient data formats, database storage engines and copy-on-write semantics for a little more than week now… reading about the pros and cons of different approaches and seeing it all come together so smoothly in a single design like Couch’s really deserves a hat-tip to the Couch team.

Great post looking at the pros of CouchDB storage format and the tradeoffs the team made on the way.

Original title and link: CouchDB’s File Format Is Brilliantly Simple and Speed-Efficient at the Cost of Disk Space (NoSQL database©myNoSQL)

Here are some technical reasons why traditional relational database vendors are getting challenged:

1. Scale: The biggest driver of the new generation of data management systems was unprecedented scale.
2. Disk Capacities have exploded and Random Disk Accesses have gotten cheaper
3. Fixed Schema is too rigid
4. First Normal Form is too restrictive/rich
5. Columnar Stores: It may sometimes be desirable to store together related columns which are accessed together.
6. Programmatic Access is also important

Great post with a somehow bogus conclusion though.

Original title and link: NoSQL Databases: 6 Business and Technical Reasons for a New Set of Requirements (NoSQL database©myNoSQL)

The topic of running MongoDB on Amazon Web Services using Elastic Block Storage came up again among the 10 tips for running MongoDB from Engine Yard:

you should know that the performance of Amazon’s Elastic Block Storage (EBS) can be inconsistent.

Following up on that Mahesh…