This article seems to totally miss the point about why startups are using NoSQL databases, namely, those that are schemaless. It's because most startups are in the process of building their main product on the fly, pushing out new versions as often as a few days or hours depending on their deployment model. Schema stand in the way of rapid development since you have to CONSTANTLY redefine them as you redefine your product. So updating your db goes something like this:
"Oh, I have to change this relationship from one to one to one-to-many."
"Well, now that we redesigned part of the database, let's migrate it."
"Ok, well enough time has passed. is it done yet? no? okay"
"ah, it's done, ok, take down the servers for maintenance and restart"
or, you can use something like couchdb, and just insert whatever new data you want on the fly, without defining schema, without migrations, and without downtime. A win for startups. It's not just about scalability, it's also about being able to do a simple task.
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This article seems to totally miss the point about why startups are using NoSQL databases, namely, those that are schemaless. It's because most startups are in the process of building their main product on the fly, pushing out new versions as often as a few days or hours depending on their deployment model. Schema stand in the way of rapid development since you have to CONSTANTLY redefine them as you redefine your product. So updating your db goes something like this: "Oh, I have to change this relationship from one to one to one-to-many." "Well, now that we redesigned part of the database, let's migrate it." "Ok, well enough time has passed. is it done yet? no? okay" "ah, it's done, ok, take down the servers for maintenance and restart" or, you can use something like couchdb, and just insert whatever new data you want on the fly, without defining schema, without migrations, and without downtime. A win for startups. It's not just about scalability, it's also about being able to do a simple task.