SQL eller NoSQL : En utvärderingsmodell av relationella databassystem och icke-relationella databaslösningar

Sammanfattning: Today’s digitalization and growing number of web-based applications increase the performative demands put on relational databases. Traditionally, relational databases have been an infallible solution to any data storage requirement, but with greater amounts of data needing to be stored – this is no longer the case. In addition to this, relational databases face shortcomings working in distributed environments, which is a prerequisite heavily linked to management of large datasets. This has led to an increase of non-relational databases, the newer of which are more commonly known as NoSQL-databases. Apart from representing different strengths and areas of expertise, NoSQL-databases are collectively designed to handle large amounts of data much more efficiently than their relational counterparts. However, recent studies show that abandoning relational databases completely is a fool’s errand, seeing as they still remain as the most viable option in most situations. This study aims to facilitate the process of determining which type of NoSQL-database is best suited as a replacement for an existing relational database, or whether a replacement is warranted at all. To do so, I isolate organizational and technological factors that together help evaluate an existing relational database’s compability in its organizational context.