NoSQL looking disruptive for next generation of IT - Industrial IoT

​I recently wrote about the potential for NoSQL databases to become the core of next generation plant historians.  Interest in this highly scalable, flexible approach to data storage is growing, as measured by DB engines.  Notably, MongoDB has just nudged its way into 4th place in the popularity rankings, squeezing past PostgresSQL.  Oracle, MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server still dominate, and most likely will for years to come.  But, a new type of business need often begets a new class of technology.  As internet-based businesses (such as Yahoo, Google, and Facebook) grew rapidly they needed a different type of storage technology to collect and analyze internet traffic data.  And NoSQL databases were born. 

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) will accelerate NoSQL adoption.  Industrial organizations are beginning to collect unprecedented volumes - and varieties - of data.  Data generated by sensors embedded in products and equipment will provide updates frequently.  Some of that data may be acted on immediately, using complex event processing engines to react in real-time to  combinations of events coming in from different input streams.  (I'll have another example of that in a blog soon.)  Other applications - such as asset performance management - will need to keep data in scalable, high-performance databases in order to gauge current asset performance against expected norms.  I expect to see Mongo and other NoSQL databases gaining an increasing share of this growing market.