OpinionTechnology

Next Named Storm – No SQL

This post is actually a response to a very thoughtful article by Merv Adiran and Ted Friedman over at Gartner.  Their point, which is a very important one, is that a platform does not make a solution.  For example, some keen developers are using Hadoop as an integration tool.  I mean it’s awesome!  I remember using MS SQL as an integration tool.  Cool?  Yes.  But a solution?  No.  It’s a bag of snakes.  Pretty much poison for a well-functioning enterprise.

A bit naughty as it may be this is really important stuff.  Why?  Disruption is happening here.  Technology-wise we have seen this again and again.  And, the No SQL technology, although somewhat slow moving, is a whopper which has a very high probability of changing the status quo.

To me it looks like this:

Data Integration: System to System
MDM: Master Data Management
ETL: Extract, Transform, Load
B.I.: Business Intelligence “a-la Cube”

The United States of Data Applications is our neighborhood.   Most vendors in the space play seriously in some and dabble in others.  There’s always a lot of confusion about what K3 does versus Informatica  versus Mule, Versus Biz Talk, etc etc.  Widely differing approaches here…that’s another blog post.

The challenge is this disruption is coming straight to the United States of Data Applications.  It is still uncertain where the No SQL hurricane will hit.  Could curve left…could curve right.  But when No SQL starts taking shape from a platform to solutions…it’s going to be a different world.