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THE GROWTH OF USER-DRIVEN CONTENT has fueled a rapid increase in the volume and type of data that is generated, manipulated, analyzed, and archived. In addition, varied newer sets of sources, including sensors, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), automated trackers and monitoring systems, are generating a lot of data. These larger volumes of data sets, often termed big data, are imposing newer challenges and opportunities around storage, analysis, and archival.

The quest to solve the problems related to large-volume and semi-structured data has led to the emergence of a class of newer types of database products. This new class of database products consists of column-oriented data stores, key/value pair databases, and document databases. Collectively, these are identifi ed as NoSQL.

The products that fall under the NoSQL umbrella are quite varied, each with their unique sets of features and value propositions. Given this, it often becomes diffi cult to decide which product to use for the case at hand. This book prepares you to understand the entire NoSQL landscape. It provides the essential concepts that act as the building blocks for many of the NoSQL products. Instead of covering a single product exhaustively, it provides a fair coverage of a number of different NoSQL products. The emphasis is often on breadth and underlying concepts rather than a full coverage of every product API. Because a number of NoSQL products are covered, a good bit of comparative analysis is also included.

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The book that you now hold in your hands is the result of the collective effort of many people. We’d like to start by thanking Bill Staples, Mai-Lan Tomsen Bukovec, and the whole IIS product team for their support. Several of us work in the IIS product team, and we know firsthand that we simply wouldn’t be able to work on this book without the team’s invaluable assistance.

Secondly, we are very grateful to Martin DelRe of Microsoft Press for his vision, his hard work in getting this project off the ground and ensuring its successful completion, and also for his never-ending support and encouragement.

It takes a lot of people and a lot of work to bring a book like this to life. There are several people in particular who we would like to acknowledge; the book would not be there without them. Brett Hill started this project and soldiered through till its completion. Special thanks to Mike Volodarsky, whose passion for quality and completeness resulted in him stepping up as the lead author. Kurt Meyer helped a lot as a project manager coordinating the writing and ensuring that the project milestones were not widely missed.

Many of our colleagues on the IIS product team had significant input into the book content. In fact, each chapter was reviewed by at least one member of the product team. Other product team members wrote the “Direct from the Source” sidebars that are peppered …..