Data stores

Databases/datastores

Relational database

• Stores data in tables
• Records in separate tables are related to each other using keys
• A key is a column storing unique values per row

Key-value

• Optimized for fast data writes
• Simple data structure
• Each row is referenced by a single key value
• Only supported operations are
  • Query
  • Insert
  • Delete

Supported platforms

Column family

• Data is organized as rows and columns BUT the columns are divided into column families that can store multiple values in a single column
  • Tables in column family databases can be divided into groups (column family) holding sets of columns that are related

Support platforms:

Graph

• Made up of entities and relationships
• Data stored as nodes and edges
  • Nodes represent instances of data entities (analogous to rows in a relational database table)
  • Edges represent the relationships between nodes (also known as grpahs)
• Represent complex relationships
• Parent/child relationships can be created between nodes (direction)
• Properties represent attributes of data against a node (email address for example)

Supported platforms

Document

• Each document typically contains all data for a single entity
  • The data contained can vary between documents
  • Each document is identified by a unique key
  • Each document is read/written as a single block
• Does not support relationships between documents
• Does not use the same data schema for all documents
  • The schema is defined internally in each document
  • Each document can use its own schema

JSON

• Each data field is identified by a label, followed by a colon, and then the field value
  • for example; “ID”: “Joe”
• Curly brackets {} are used to enclose the document and any sub-documents
• Azure Cosmos DB is the most common storage solution for this data store

Supported platforms: Azure Cosmos DB

Table

• Uses rows and columns
• Schema is not enforced
• Each row can have different number of columns

Supported platforms

• Azure Table storage

Object

• Optimized for storing and retrieving blobs such as audio and video files

Support platforms

• Azure Blob storage

References

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