MySQL & NoSQL from a PHP Perspective

MySQL & NoSQL from a PHP perspective

October 4th, 2011 - Tim Juravich

Tim Juravich@timjuravich


• Developer, Startup Junky

• Lead projects in .NET, Ruby, and PHP

• Book on PHP & CouchDB development out early next year from Packt Publishing


Who Am I?


• A high level discussion on NoSQL databases from the PHP developer POV

• We’ll focus on Data Models

• What we won’t be able to talk about:

- How each database scales, stores it’s data.

- CAP Theorem (http://tinyurl.com/nosql-cap)

• We’ll touch on tools for us PHP Developers


What we’ll talk about today

http://tinyurl.com/nosql-cap

http://tinyurl.com/nosql-cap


A data model defines how your application stores data and how it

makes associations.

If you force an incorrect data model into your application...you’re

probably going to have a hard time.


Data Models



Traditional relational Model (MySQL)

id first_name last_name

1 John Doe

2 Jane Doe

usersid address city state zip user_id

1123 Main

Street Seattle WA 98101 1

2 120 Pike Street

Seattle WA 98101 1

3 321 2nd Ave

Seattle WA 98101 2

addresses

id number primary user_id

1 555-867-5309 1 1

2 555-867-5309 0 1

3 555-867-5309 1 2

phone numbers


• Nothing really...there are just limitations

- Due to normalization as your data grows so does the complexity of your

database

- As your database grows, writing becomes a bottleneck

- Difficult to scale horizontally

- Sometimes tables are just too limiting


What’s wrong with this?


• History

- Some NoSQL databases have been around forever

- In 2004 & 2005 they explode

• NoSQL really means “Not Only SQL”


NoSQL databases are born


• The Good News

- Different tools for different situations

- Flexible (Schema-less)

- Focused on scalability out of the box

- New data models

• The Bad News

- No common standards

- Relatively immature

- New data models


NoSQL



There are no silver bullets!



Size vs. Complexity

Typical RDMBS

Key/value StoresColumn Stores

Document Database

Graph Database

RDMBS Performance Line

Scale To Complexity

Scal

e To

Siz

e



Key Value Stores• Definition

- Access to a value based on a unique key

- Think of this in terms of a hash-table, or in PHP an associative array.

“John Doe”

user_1

{ name: “John Doe”, email: [email protected]”, phone: “8675309”}

user_2

mailto:[email protected]



• Strengths

- Incredibly Fast

- Pub/Sub support

- Simple CLI

• Weaknesses

- It can feel limiting with a complex use case

• Use it for

- Rapidly changing data.

- Stocks, Analytics, Real-time collection/communication


Redis

redis> set im.a.key "im.a.value"OKredis> get im.a.key"im.a.value"



Redis & PHP• There are a variety of Redis & PHP toolkits (http://tinyurl.com/redis-php)

• My favorite is Predis (https://github.com/nrk/predis)

• Twitter clone to play with: (http://redis.io/topics/twitter-clone)

<?php$redis = new Predis\Client();$redis->set('foo', 'bar');$value = $redis->get('foo');

https://github.com/nrk/predis/

https://github.com/nrk/predis/

http://redis.io/topics/twitter-clone

http://redis.io/topics/twitter-clone



Column Stores• Definition

- Similar to relational database, but it flips it all around. Instead of storing

records, column stores store all of the values for a column together in a

stream. From there, you can use an index to get column values for a particular

record.

- Can handle 4 or 5 dimensions

Keyspace, Column Family, Column Family Row, Column

Keyspace, Column Family, Column Family Row, Super Column, Column



Column Stores

users (Column Family)

johndoe (key)

John Doe

name (column) email (column) phone (column)

[email protected] 5558675309

janedoe (key)

Jane Doe

name (column) email (column)

[email protected]

example-db (Keyspace)



Cassandra• Strengths

- Can handle some serious data

- Writes are much faster than reads

- Hadoop integration

• Weaknesses

- Complex for it’s offering and bloated

• Use it for

- Apps with a lot of writing. Serious applications.



Cassandra & PHP• Thrift

• There are a few PHP libraries (http://tinyurl.com/cassandra-php)

• My favorite is phpcassa (https://github.com/thobbs/phpcassa)

https://github.com/thobbs/phpcassa

https://github.com/thobbs/phpcassa



Cassandra & PHP (phpcassa)<?php

// Connect to Keyspace$pool = new ConnectionPool('example-db');

// Create ColumnFamily$users = new ColumnFamily($pool, 'users');

// Create User$users->insert('2’, array('name' => 'Jane Doe', 'email' => '[email protected]'));

// Get User$users->get('2');





Document Databases• Definition

- Documents provide access to structured data, without a schema.

- Buckets of key-value pairs inside of a self contained object.

- Friendliest NoSQL databases for PHP developers



Document Databases{ id: 'johndoe', name: 'John Doe', email : ‘[email protected]’, phone : ‘5558675309’ addresses : [ “address1” : {

address: '123 main street', city: 'seattle', state: 'WA',zip: ‘98101’ },

“address2” : { address: '123 main street', city: 'seattle', state: 'WA', zip: ‘98101’ }

]}

{ id: 'janedoe', name: 'Jane Doe', email : ‘[email protected]’,}







MongoDB• Strengths

- Familiar Query Language

- A lot of developer toolkits

• Weaknesses

- Sharding can be a pain

• Use it for

- Things you might do with MySQL, but schemas are getting in the way.

$post->where('id', $this->getID());



MongoDB & PHP• A TON of libraries (http://tinyurl.com/mongo-php)

- Doctrine

- Cake

- Code Ignitor

- Symfony

- Zend

- etc.

• My favorite is ActiveMongo (https://github.com/crodas/ActiveMongo)

https://github.com/crodas/ActiveMongo




MongoDB & PHP (Active Mongo)<?phpActiveMongo::connect('example-db', 'localhost');

class User extends ActiveMongo{ public $name; public $email;}

$user = new User();$user->name = 'John Doe';$user->email = '[email protected]';

// Insert$user->save();

// Update$user->email = '[email protected]';$user->save();



CouchDB• Strengths

- Bi-lateral replication (master-master)

- Slick RESTful JSON API, easy to use

• Weaknesses

- Need some Javascript chops

- Slower writes

• Use it for

- Mobile, CRM, CMS systems, multi-site deployments



CouchDB & PHP• Not as many as MongoDB (http://tinyurl.com/couch-php)

- Doctrine

- Variety of standalone libraries

• My favorite is Sag (https://github.com/sbisbee/sag)

http://tinyurl.com/couch-php

http://tinyurl.com/couch-php





CouchDB & PHP (Sag)<?phpclass User{ public $name; public $email;}

$user = new User();$user->name = 'John Doe';$user->email = '[email protected]';

$sag = new Sag('127.0.0.1', '5984');$sag->setDatabase('example-db');$sag->post($user);



Graph Databases• Definition

- Instead of tables, rows, columns, it's a flexible graph model that contains

nodes. Nodes have properties and relationships to other nodes.



Graph Databases



Neo4j• Strengths

- Fully transactional

- Flexible API

• Weaknesses

- A completely different way of thinking

- Complex

• Use it for

- Social relations, road maps, network topologies



Neo4j & PHP• There are a few of options (http://tinyurl.com/neo4j-php)

- REST API

- Thrift

• It’s pretty complex...

http://tinyurl.com/neo4j-php

http://tinyurl.com/neo4j-php



So which DB should you use?• Don’t rule out relational databases

• Do your homework

• Every project is different

• NoSQL probably should be avoided in these areas

- Transactions, orders, anything where money changes hands

- Business critical data or line of business applications


Thanks!Feel free to reach out with any questions:

[email protected]

@timjuravich



MySQL & NoSQL from a PHP Perspective

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