An item of data that is identified by an arbitrary name. The key is the name, and the value is the content; for example, the key might be CITY, and the value might be CHICAGO. A key-value database is ...

Most applications need some form of persistence—a way to store the data outside the application for safekeeping. The most basic way is to write data to the file system, but that can quickly become a ...

Transactional cloud databases come in all shapes and sizes, from simple key-value stores to planet-scale distributed relational databases. Here’s how to choose the right cloud database for your ...

Imagine flash storage that stores data in exactly the format used by applications. That’s what’s promised by key-value flash media, as envisaged by at least one big drive maker, some researchers and ...

NoSQL database systems continue to gain traction, but they are still not widely understood. There is more than one type of NoSQL database and a large number of individual NoSQL DBMSs. There are more ...

If you’ve worked with relational database systems for any length of time, you’ve probably participated in a discussion (argument?) about the topic of this month’s column, surrogate keys. A great ...

The design of a database determines what method is best suited for backing it up, and those methods vary quite a bit. In order to back up a database, you need to know how it’s delivered, but you also ...