Review of NoSQL databases and performance testing on HBase

Abstract

NoSQL (Not Only SQL) is the generic term of a kind of non-relational database products. This paper, firstly, lists the disadvantages of traditional relational databases, introduces NoSQL databases including their advantages, disadvantages and their application status. Then, a comparison is made between NoSQL databases and SQL database, also another comparison between different NoSQL products. Finally, we introduce the architecture and data model of HBase database, which is a representative of NoSQL databases, and did some performance tests on HBase database, including the column family test, the sort test, the random read/write test and the query test. Test results show that written and query speed of HBase is slow under a single machine environment, but can be significantly improved in multimachine cluster environment.