The document discusses evolving schemas in NoSQL databases. It describes starting with a simple data structure and search index, then enhancing it to support dynamic filtering and cached previews without hitting the main data store. It also covers approaches for migrating data to a new format, such as adding new fields, while the system is live using techniques like versioning the data and writing upgrade functions. Finally, it recommends some lessons learned, such as that schemaless does not mean no schema, changes should be painless, and agile code needs agile data.

1. You got schema in my JSON!
Evolving schemas in a schemaless world
!
Philipp Fehre
!
Technical Evangelist at Couchbase

2. From prototype to production and beyond

3. “Create an available, scalable search index”
–The Spec

4. Least downtime possible

5. Scale horizontally

6. Not the primary data source

7. Welcome to NoSQL Land

8. Data in —> Index
Query —> IDs out

9. module DB
STORE = {
keyOne: [1, 2],
keyTwo: [1, 3, 4]
}
!
def self.find_all keys
keys.map { |k| STORE.fetch(k.to_sym, []) }
end
end

10. def get_search_results keys
results = DB::find_all(keys)
results.flatten.uniq
end
!
get_search_results ["keyOne", “keyTwo"]
!
# => [1, 2, 3, 4]

11. “Add options for dynamic filtering.”
–The Spec

12. Data in —> Index + Filter Data
Query —> IDs out

13. How to evolve the data?

14. Still in the prototyping phase

15. Drop and rebuild!

16. module DB
STORE = {
keyOne: [{id:
{id:
keyTwo: [{id:
{id:
{id:
}
1,
2,
1,
3,
4,
prop:
prop:
prop:
prop:
prop:
"bar"},
"foo"}],
"bar"},
"bar"},
"bar"}]
!
def self.find_all keys, prop
keys.map { |k|
STORE.fetch(k.to_sym, []).map { |e|
e if e[:prop] == prop
}.compact
}
# => [[{:id=>1, :prop=>”bar"}], …]
end
end

17. 1 != {id: 1, …}

18. Your code only understands one format

19. Your code should only understand one format

20. Implicit Schema

21. def get_search_results keys, prop = "bar"
results = DB::find_all(keys, prop)
results.flatten.uniq.map { |e| e[:id] }
end
!
get_search_results ["keyOne", “keyTwo"]
!
# => [1, 3, 4]

22. Time to go live

23. Time to improve

24. Part of the concept validation

25. “Don’t hit the main datastore for preview”
–The Spec

26. Data in —> Index + Filter Data + Cached Data
Query —> JSON out

27. How to evolve the data, now?

28. We can’t rebuild the dataset

29. In SQL this is done via migrations

30. class AddFields < ActiveRecord::Migration
def up
change_table :quotas do |t|
t.column :free, :integer
end
Quota.all do |qota|
quota.free = calculate_free(quota)
quota.save
end
end
end

31. Crawling all data is slow

32. class AddFields < ActiveRecord::Migration
def up
change_table :quotas do |t|
t.column :free, :integer
end
execute "COMMIT"
Quota.all do |qota|
quota.free = calculate_free(quota)
quota.save
end
end
end

33. During Migration the implicit Schema broken

34. Migrate data up “on the fly”

35. Migrate data down “on the fly”

36. Shorten the time until the new data is usable

37. Versioning the data

38. module DB
STORE = {
keyOne: [{id:
{id:
keyTwo: [{id:
{id:
{id:
}
1,
2,
1,
3,
4,
prop:
prop:
prop:
prop:
prop:
"bar", vsn: 2, free: 20 },
"foo", vsn: 2, free: 10 }],
"bar"},
"bar"},
"bar"}]
!
def self.find_all keys, prop
keys.map { |k|
STORE.fetch(k.to_sym, []).map { |e|
e if e[:prop] == prop
}.compact
}
end
end

39. def is_version2? data; data[:vsn] == 2; end
def get_free id; 20; end
def save data; data; end
!
def transfrom_to_v2 data
return data if is_version2?(data)
!
data[:vsn] = 2
data[:free] = calculate_free(data[:id])
save data
end

40. def get_search_results keys
results = DB::find_all(keys, "bar")
results.flatten
.map { |data| transfrom_to_v2 data }
.uniq
end
!
get_search_results ["keyOne", “keyTwo"]
!
# =>
[{:id=>1, :prop=>"bar", :vsn=>2, :free=>20},
{:id=>3, :prop=>"bar", :vsn=>2, :free=>20},
{:id=>4, :prop=>"bar", :vsn=>2, :free=>20}]

41. DRY it up: Deprecator
https://github.com/sideshowcoder/deprecator

42. class Thing
def initialize *args
args.each do |k, v|
self.instance_variable_set "@#{k}", v
end
@version = 0 unless @version
end
attr_accessor :version
!
include Deprecator::Versioning
ensure_version 2, :upgrade_to
!
def upgrade_to expected_version
# handle the version upgrade
save
end
!
def save
# save back to the store
end
end

43. Lessons learned

44. Painless data changes are important

45. Schemaless does not mean no Schema at all

46. With freedom comes more responsibility

47. Agile Code needs Agile Data

48. Couchbase
NoSQL Database

49. !
Any Questions?
Philipp Fehre
!
github.com/sideshowcoder
twitter.com/ischi
sideshowcoder.com

50. Talks to listen to
!
•
Schemalessness: http://cloud.dzone.com/articles/martinfowler-schemalessness
•
Introduction to NoSQL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=qI_g07C_Q5I