IBM is Baking NoSQL Capabilities into DB2 and Informix
IBM recently revealed its plan to integrate certain NoSQL capabilities into IBM DB2 and Informix. In particular, it is working to integrate graph store and key:value store capabilities into the flagship IBM database products. IBM is not yet indicating when these new capabilities will be available.
IBM does not plan to integrate all NoSQL technologies into DB2 and Informix. After all, there are many NoSQL technologies, and quite a few of them are clearly not suitable for integration into IBM’s products. The following chart summarizes the NoSQL product landscape. This landscape includes more than 100 products across a number of database categories. IBM is saying that they will integrate certain NoSQL capabilities into their products and work hand-in-hand with others NoSQL technologies.
Readers of this blog will know that these developments are consistent with my view that certain NoSQL technologies will eventually find themselves integrated into the major relational database products. In much the same way as the major relational database products fended off the challenge of object databases by adding features like stored procedures and user-defined functions, I expect the major relational database products to fend off the NoSQL challenge with similar tactics. And don’t forget that the major relational database products have already integrated XML capabilities, providing XQuery as an alternate query language. Its not too much of a stretch to imagine how several of these NoSQL capabilities might be supported in an optimized way as part of a relational database product.
I look forward to blogging more about this topic as news about it emerges…
