Is SQL Still Relevant?

Or, should we just use an all-in approach to tableless structures?

SQL has been around for a while. 

But over time, it’s had its fair share of bad rep from developers and businesses for all the years of over-engineered structures, horrible setups, and under-optimized solutions.

During the past decade, we’ve seen a rise and growing popularity in tableless databases as an alternative solution. As cloud providers expand to provide more services, we’re seeing different proprietor based tableless databases such as Firebase by Google and DynamoDB by AWS. 

In addition to this, there is also MongoDB, PostgreSQL, and Cassandra that are widely used and implemented at large scale commercial levels.

So this leads to the question: is SQL still relevant?

SQL, MySQL, and All Things Relational 

SQL was developed in the 70s by IBM researchers Raymond Boyce and Donald Chamberlin. It was created to solve the issue of how to deal with large data sets and how to organize it in a way that made it accessible.

The actual language itself wasn’t publicly available until 1979 by a company called Relational Software — now known as Oracle.

MySQL is a database management system that is available for free and open-sourced. The difference between MySQL and SQL is that MySQL is a software and platform that implements SQL, which is the query language.

The idea behind relational relationships is that data is stored in tables, which are organized into columns, and each column stores one type of data with each instance table data in rows. For increased speed, accessibility, and prevention of duplicates, you have an index.

The Good and the Bad

Finding the right balance for data is actually a lot harder than it looks — especially if that data and its usage evolve over time. While a business can predict certain developments, new ideas, and features produced by the industry can often create challenges and put pressure on an existing database schema.

But this can also be said for tableless methodologies and the databases that use them. 

The issue with SQL is that there is a disconnect between the data and the interfaces that consume it. Tableless’s rise to mainstream popularity is partially due to its immense flexibility and lack of constraints.

However, data authority may be stronger with SQL as data duplication is not advocated in the design (albeit still possible). But when it comes to tableless structures, duplication is encouraged as a trade-off for speed and usability.

Cost of Data Storage and Maintenance

SQL is commercially supported on all major cloud platforms and most developers are familiar with it in some form due to its prevalence in the industry. 

For cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft’s Azure, SQL database instances are charged per hour with additional costs for backup. The hourly rate is also determined by the size of the booted up instance and any other provisioning that comes with it.

In contrast, tableless structures by these cloud providers are charged based on the pay-per-use model. This payment model, in addition to the ability for developers to quickly create interfaces, can save businesses in the short term on both the time and money fronts. However, if the tableless data is not structured to be read and written efficiently, you can quickly stack up the total number of invocations and rack up a rather large bill. 

SQL does not have this problem. Your database can be as big or small as you need it to be and the cost of data storage and usage will remain fixed.

Final Thoughts

So is SQL still relevant?

For businesses, the quick answer is yes.

Even with tableless databases such as MongoDB and Firebase becoming mainstream, and being advocated for by developers as well as being used in increasing proportion, SQL is still relevant — especially from data persistence and scalable cost perspectives.

For some businesses, having a fixed cost can help them determine how much to allocate budgets and future development. Sometimes, the fixed cost may seem bigger initially but in the long term, SQL can prove itself to be cheaper for traditional and tested cases.

However, we shouldn’t dismiss tableless structures altogether. When used in conjunction with SQL, it can form a layer that is quicker and faster for development work to occur. 

Everything has its perks and quirks.

It’s a matter of figuring out what they are and implementing the right solution for it. When it comes to your data needs, SQL may still be the most effective and efficient for you based on legacy data or past historical interactions with it.

Whatever the case, SQL is still very much alive and relevant.

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Talk to us today. Our developers at SRG are highly skilled at figuring out what your software development needs on all fronts. We can help you determine your technology needs and get your projects moving.

Co-authored by:

Dave Wesley ~ President, SRG
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Aphinya Dechalert ~ Marketing Communications, SRG
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