> Nevertheless Amazon uses Oracle Database to run their business. Even though they don’t want to. ... In the end, they will still use SQL—just not the Oracle Database.<p>I really dislike articles that try to make it sound like smart companies like Amazon and Facebook don't know what they are doing. Amazon has never said they won't use SQL. They have an innovative set of AWS SQL offerings including RDS, Aurora, and Redshift.<p>In fact, I would argue that Amazon Web Services is responsible as much or more than any other vendor for 'The Revival of Great SQL Ideas' that this article discusses. For evidence look at 'Amazon Redshift and the Case for Simpler Data Warehouses' by Gupta et al. [0] Amazon has profoundly altered data management not just in the SQL arena but across the board.<p>[0] <a href="https://event.cwi.nl/lsde/papers/p1917-gupta.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://event.cwi.nl/lsde/papers/p1917-gupta.pdf</a> (Paragraph 3 of the abstract is my favorite part--it's a brilliant formulation of the problem they are solving.)
> The lesson we can learn from this story is the following: start with a generic database...SQL database are a good choice because they can do many tricks...The modern and successful architecture that is commonly used today is to have an SQL database that is sometimes surrounded by some one-trick ponies to take care of a few pain points.<p>Yup.<p>I like that we now have more of these one-trick ponies to choose from our toolbox when necessary, when a relational database just won't cut it.<p>But, my biggest complaint around the NoSQL movement is the marketing pseudo-hype it created. So many amateurs who don't understand database selection took it as gospel and evangelized it across the web (eg. Mongo w/ Node).<p>It's hard to correct people's understanding when they learn things wrong the first time, especially when there's a mountain of incorrect information they can point to on the web ("These people can't all be wrong, can they?" Well...).
I sometimes wish I could directly write a plan for my query instead of relying on the db to come up with something that matches it (OLAP). The other 90% percent I’m happy that it just works.