A blog by Oleg Shilovitsky
Information & Comments about Engineering and Manufacturing Software

noSQL Use Case for PLM

noSQL Use Case for PLM
Oleg
Oleg
15 September, 2010 | 2 min for reading

I had a chance to read SQL vs. noSQL article in Linux Journal yesterday on the plane. I found it interesting and despite a bit up-level of a technical terms, beneficial for our PLM discussion. Navigate your browser on the following link and read this paper.  The noSQL story is probably one of the most dramatic in the modern history and present of data management. It considered as a heretic in the early beginning. Now noSQL comes to the point when we can talk about real advantages and disadvantages of both usage – traditional SQL and noSQL databases. So, what is the noSQL story is about?

SQL and RDBMS predictability

The story of SQL databases is very tight connected to two definitions: RDBMS and ACID. ACID means Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability. RDBMS – Relational Database Management Systems. The story about RDBMS, SQL and ACID is a story about development of transactional systems. If you develop a financial system, you want your system be predictable. You cannot take a guess about what is going on in your financial records. The same is when you schedule your manufacturing shopfloor operations. ERP leveraged RDBMS systems heabvily in their history. A vast majority of ERP systems today based on SQL /RDBMS systems.

noSQL Case

The noSQL came to us from the internet examples of the past decade such as Google, Amazon S3 and others. The fact, modern internet kids are using it added additional flavor of importance. However, what is the real case behind? Instead of using relational tables and keys, the modern noSQL databases are using simple “key-value” stores. Each piece of data going to the database is given a key and key be easy retrieved back using the same key. This portion of simplicity provides a significant value. The step beyond key-value is to have “document stores” that can access documents according to the specific key values.

PLM Use Case

Product Lifecycle Management has traditional roots in SQL databases. Started as pure data management discipline, PDM and PLM systems came to compete with other enterprise systems. It was an obvious decision back in late 1980s and beginning of 1990s that to establish a full data control you need to manage your data using RDBMS. However, this decision was taken time ago. Since then, PLM developed lots of use cases. These use cases can bring an importance of predictability down and importance of flexibility and simplicity up.

What is my conclusion? Development of PDM and PLM systems is not a simple case. The complexity of systems is high. However, some fundamental decisions and architectures of PDM/PLM were laid about twenty years ago. The urgency of reducing complexity and flexibility in PLM architectures can raise a noSQL case for PLM. Just my opinion…

Best, Oleg

Recent Posts

Also on BeyondPLM

4 6
13 July, 2020

I’m learning more about Siemens’s plans to expand their portfolio and capabilities in the cloud and SaaS directions. My previous...

11 December, 2018

I’m coming with one more update the progress with my new video blog – Musings about Bill of Materials. It...

19 October, 2020

When a company starts thinking about PLM there is nothing more important than to wrap your head around the idea...

15 September, 2017

One of the hottest buzzwords in the lexicon of IT and PLM vendors today is digital transformation. It is everywhere...

18 December, 2021

As technology advances, businesses must be able to upgrade their software and platforms in order to remain competitive. Historically, PLM...

3 January, 2014

Our hardware life is much more diversified these days. Smartphones and tablets made a dent in the universe of Windows...

21 July, 2009

Very impressive capabilities of Google Docs including Auto-playfeatures. I think presentation becomes very mature.Two questions incontext of this information I...

26 April, 2017

Manufacturing is under going tremendous transformation process. Build to order, speed and engagement with consumer are most important competitive factors....

27 July, 2010

I read Jim Brown’s Can Siemens Make More Fun with HD-PLM? Jim is writing about the future of PLM experience. I...

Blogroll

To the top