Treffer: Quality Attribute-Guided Evaluation of NoSQL Databases: A Case Study

For software developers, the selection of a particular NoSQL technology imposes a specific distributed software architecture and data model, making the technology selection difficult to defer. NoSQL database technologies provide high levels of performance, scalability, and availability by simplifying data models and supporting horizontal scaling and data replication. Each NoSQL product embodies a particular set of consistency, availability, and partition tolerance (CAP) tradeoffs, along with a data model that reduces the conceptual mismatch between data access and data storage models. This means technology selection must be done early, often with limited information about specific application requirements, and the decision must balance speed with precision, as the NoSQL solution space is large and evolving rapidly. In this paper we present the method and results of a study to compare the architecturally-relevant characteristics of three NoSQL databases for use in a large, distributed healthcare organization. We reflect on some of the fundamental difficulties of performing detailed technical evaluations of NoSQL databases specifically, and big data systems in general, that have become apparent during our study. ; The original document contains color images.