NuoDB is different kind of database, which is almost like traditional relation database but unlike other database, which take approach of shared-disk or shared-nothing architectures, NuoDB is new distributed, peer-to-peer asynchronous approach.

As other big relation database like DB2, Oracle and MySQL tried to do in the long run they added new feature with every new release as the version grow the feature grow as well and people are using less and less on the old features that is been added to that Database during the new releases.

And what NuoDB did is created a new relation database(even though it’s not relation database in the core) from scratch and only focused on OLTP “Online Transaction Processing” and only added the features that is needed for OLTP application like High performance, low administration, ACID complaints with the existence hardware available in any organization.

Following are the main key points that NuoDB added in their whitepaper that distinguished them from other traditional database, I have not tested this personally but I have read a lot about them and these main key points.

Distribute database across multiple Geographic location

What NuoDB did is it created perfect environment for OLTP application to distribute the transaction across multiple geographic location as this not only give it speed but also save a lot of bandwidth.

Data storage

NuoDB can be setup to store data on Flat files, key-value store such as HDFS or Amazon s3 which make it extremely cheaper than other database because no matter how you stored your data you can do it in normal storage medium.

Append only

NuoDB is append only database that make extensive use of versioning which means that you can make point-in-time enquires (i.e. for compliance use) that the product support scheme solution

ACID and Higher availability

NuoDB is completely ACID complaints and provide support for concurrency, locking and commit process, and also Nuo is build to be Higher available for both planned and unplanned down time.

There are several edition of NuoDB and they are as bellow:

Developer Edition:

  • For Development only you cannot deploy with this
  • Free for one year
  • Support all features (all feature is available)

Pro-Edition

  • Standard commercial and you can deploy this
  • Start at $20K for 5 host
  • If you want to add more host add $4K more

Enterprise Edition

  • Geo distributed deployment
  • Starts at $30K for 5 host
  • Additional host cost you $6K each

Cloud Edition

  • NuoDB on Amazon Market place
  • Free on micro-instance
  • Starts at 1$ an hour for high-memory 4x instance

These were some the main feature of NuoDB that set it apart from other Traditional database and they have 4 types of edition, I might test this database with big data and see how it perform but one thing is for sure it’s only for OLTP not for data warehouse.