Matt has followed the development of NoSQL databases with great interest and used them to solve many problems. In this talk, he will share his experiences of working with NoSQL whilst building web applications at Bit Zesty. He will evaluate the different databases he has encountered, as well as discuss the drawbacks in this emergent technological field.

1. Notes from the field:
Different NoSQL tools in
production
Matthew Ford

2. We've used:
Key Value Stores: Document Stores:
Redis MongoDB
Tokyo Cabinet CouchDB

3. Redis
Project: Gnip Filter
Requirements:
Users can filter realtime data streams by keywords.
Solution:
redis.set_add('ipad', 'client_id')
In the background we filter the data stream, when a keyword
matches, we push that piece of data to all the client ids.
redis.set_members('ipad')

4. Redis
Benefits: Drawbacks:
Fast Not fault tolerant
Simple model No replication
Sets are useful Whole data set in memory
O(1) for set add/remove

5. Tokyo Cabinet
Project: tweetarium
Requirement:
Store tweets from a user to build up twitter lists
Solution:
Serialized JSON from the twitter API, and arrays of twitter ids
for the lists. Running on a small slicehost slice (poor mans
memcached)
Live at http://tweetarium.com/

7. Tokyo Cabinet
Benefits: Drawbacks:
Still Fast Documentation mostly in
Japanese
Persistent
Kyoto Cabinet (successor)
Space efficient

8. CouchDB
Project: Project management app
Requirements:
Everything needed to have version tracking (snapshots of the
entire project and all of it's associations).
Solution:
Hybrid system, removed version control from SQL and pass a
JSON representation of the project data to CouchDB.

9. CouchDB
Benefits: Drawbacks:
Flexible Library support (at the time)
Simplify architecture JS Views, with changing
schema
Robust
HTTP not a fast as binary
protocol

10. MongoDB
Project: feesability
Problem:
Case estimation and planning tool, with the need to 'clone
cases'.
Solution:
All cases data is embedded within the case document (with
some references to other documents). This enables us to easily
clone an entire case.

11. MongoDB
Benefits: Drawbacks:
Flexible Replication not here yet
Fast Libraries are playing catch up
Ad-Hoc queries Durability Trade-off
Easy to
query embedded documents

12. Conclusion
Use the right tools for the job

13. Thanks!
More info
http://blog.bitzesty.com
General NoSQL news
http://nosql.mypopescu.com/