When and how to migrate data from SQL to NoSQL are matters of much debate. It can certainly be a daunting task, but when your SQL systems hit architectural limits or your cloud provider expenses skyrocket, it’s probably time to consider a move.
Structured Query Language, or SQL, was invented at IBM soon after the introduction of the relational database. Since its introduction, SQL has become the most widely used database language, used for querying data, data manipulation (insert, update and delete), data definition (schema creation and modification), and data access control. Though the terms refer to different technologies, ‘SQL’ and ‘RDBMS’ have become virtually interchangeable. Though some non-relational databases support SQL, the term “SQL database” generally means a relational database.
During the decades in which relational databases proliferated, data entry was largely a manual process. Times have changed. The advent of smartphones, the ‘app economy,’ and cloud computing in the late 2000s caused a seachange in the workloads, query types, and traffic patterns needed to support a global user base.
