No Complexity, No Enigma, NoSQL

If there is one feature of WorkflowFirst that I understate it is probably its NoSQL foundation. When we talk about hierarchical data modeling, this is in fact because at its core WorkflowFirst is a document-centric database, and only recently has this type of database been taken seriously in the enterprise because only recently have we seen widespread acceptance of databases that do not have the more traditional relational model at their foundation. This acceptance has materialized into a movement known as NoSQL.

The motivation is multifaceted. Firstly there was the realization that relational databases don't scale very well. The Internet has opened up the possibility of having thousands or millions of concurrent users, and this type of load was never considered possible when SQL databases were designed.

Secondly there is the fact that it interoperates so easily with object oriented and structure oriented programming languages. Javascript has become a predominant programming language. Javascript makes it simple to create nested structures casually. This is perhaps the reason why it has become so popular as a browser scripting language. Built-in to Javascript is a persistence/serialization format for these structures which makes it easy to pass around networks and store in files. When you combine this with a document-centric database, then you can store your Javascript structures without any extra work.

But perhaps the most important overriding theme here is actually NoSQL's simplicity. It is its simplicity that helps it scale, and its simplicity in its Javascript manifestation that has made it so popular for casual client-side development, and now server-side in the form of node.js.

WorkflowFirst has adopted NoSQL as its foundation for this very same reason: simplicity. As well as having a reputation for being unscalable and difficult to interoperate with programming langages, relational databases scare away business experts. It's totally foreign to them. Document-centric databases, however, are far more natural because even the most technophobic management can appreciate the idea of folders. By providing a technological foundation accessible to even non-developers, WorkflowFirst brings a whole new meaning to application development. Now even end-users can participate in the discussion of data models.

Even though WorkflowFirst can utilize SQL Server or SQL Compact, it takes those databases and transforms them into NoSQL data stores, hiding the relational aspects. This provides WorkflowFirst with the reliability of a SQL database, and the simplicity of NoSQL. And with the promise of integration with other NoSQL databases, it also provides a migration path to highly scalable databases such as MongoDB in the future.

If anything, NoSQL is an expression of a vision where simplicity and scalability are a given in development. I hope WorkflowFirst will help bring that vision to a reality.


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