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Relational databases have long been a staple in enterprise IT. But demand for different kinds of databases has grown in recent years. And, according to a new Forrester Wave report, "NoSQL is not an option -- it has become a necessity to support next-generation applications."

What's so great about NoSQL? The non-relational technology can support scale-out architecture which leverages low-cost compute servers, clustered to deliver performance of large high-end symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) servers, Forrester Research said. Plus, NoSQL offers a flexible schema-less model providing the capability to store, process, and access any type of customer or business data. It can support structured, unstructured, and semi-structured data.

And NoSQL can lower data management costs, because many NoSQL solutions are open source, and others sell for much less than a full version of commercial relational database management solutions.

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Forrester looked at several NoSQL options in its recent Forrester Wave report, including open source, cloud-based, and commercial, and included 15 NoSQL solutions in its report. Forrester considered nine of those to be leaders in its 26-criteria evaluation.

As part of its vendor evaluation, Forrester fielded an online survey in March 2016 that included 3,343 respondents from the following countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, New Zealand, the UK and the US. All the respondents were people who have significant involvement in planning, funding, and purchasing business and technology products and services. And they all worked at companies with 100 or more employees.

A full version of the report is available from a few of the vendors who ranked as Leaders, including MongoDB which topped the list, as well as MapR and Couchbase.

The full report features more detailed analysis of each NoSQL provider's strengths and weaknesses.

Here, we pulled out a quick snapshot view of NoSQL's momentum in the enterprise, plus the list of the nine vendors that Forrester ranked as Leaders. 

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