Press releases

Seven Databases in Seven Weeks--New from Pragmatic Bookshelf: A Guide to Modern Databases and the NoSQL Movement

Raleigh, NC—Data is getting bigger and more complex by the day, and so are your choices in handling it. From traditional RDBMS to newer NoSQL approaches, Seven Databases in Seven Weeks (Pragmatic Bookshelf, $35.00) takes you on a tour of some of the hottest open source databases today.

In the tradition of Bruce A. Tate's Seven Languages in Seven Weeks, this book goes beyond your basic tutorial to explore the essential concepts at the core of each technology.

Redis, Neo4J, CouchDB, MongoDB, HBase, Riak, and Postgres: with each database, you'll tackle a real-world data problem that highlights the concepts and features that make it shine. You'll explore the five data models employed by these databases: relational, key/value, columnar, document, and graph. See which kinds of problems are best suited to each, and when to use them.

You'll learn how MongoDB and CouchDB are strikingly different, and discover the Dynamo heritage at the heart of Riak. Make your applications faster with Redis and more connected with Neo4J. Use MapReduce to solve Big Data problems. Build clusters of servers using scalable services like Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).

Understand the tradeoffs between consistency and availability, and when you can use them to your advantage. Use multiple databases in concert to create a platform that's more than the sum of its parts, or find one that meets all your needs at once.

Seven Databases in Seven Weeks will take you on a deep dive into each of the databases, their strengths and weaknesses, and how to choose the ones that fit your needs.

Available for e-readers in epub, mobi, and PDF formats direct from the publisher and in paperback from fine bookstores worldwide.

What People are Saying

"This is by far the best substantive overview of modern databases. Unlike the host of tutorials, blog posts, and documentation I have read, this book taught me why I would want to use each type of database and the ways in which I can use them in a way that made me easily understand and retain the information. It was a pleasure to read."
—Loren Sands-Ramshaw, Software Engineer, U.S. Department of Defense

"This is one of the best CouchDB introductions I have seen."
—Jan Lehnardt, Apache CouchDB Developer and Author

"In an ideal world, the book cover would have been big enough to call this book 'Everything you never thought you wanted to know about databases that you can't possibly live without.' To be fair, Seven Databases in Seven Weeks will probably sell better."
—Dr Nic Williams, VP of Technology, Engine Yard