which backend stack for development e-commerce mobile app? - mongodb

I am learning flutter is really a good technology to build mobile apps ,my project is an e-commerce app,but I am confused about which route I will take for back-end. I read about Firebase and how its good but I read also its limited by 200 users concurrently on a real-time database so it will not be a good option so the research led me to express.js"Node.js" + SQL or MongoDB \ Laravel + SQL, get in mind that I have a good experience with men stack (Express with MongoDB) but I hear that MongoDB is too expensive to be host also I need to know if MongoDB can be a great deal in a free cluster or not with my e-commerce app .

If you have good experience in Express you probably go with it. And if you are not ok with MongoDb, Specially a paid version, then you definitely go with SQL. But it will be a bit complex than MongoDB and take extra time for you to manually control your CRM database for E-commerce Application.
On the other hand MySQL has no limit on the number of databases. The underlying file system may have a limit on the number of directories.
MySQL has no limit on the number of tables. The underlying file system may have a limit on the number of files that represent tables. Individual storage engines may impose engine-specific constraints. InnoDB permits up to 4 billion tables. This will give SQL a plus point at this stage.
But laravel is also a good technology I am not so familiar with it. so I cant suggest it.

Related

NoSQL Database for ECommerce

I will be constructing an ecommerce site, and would like to use a no-sql database, which will fit well with the plans for the app. But when it comes to which database would fit the job, im not sure. After comparing various DB's, the ones that seem best might be either mongo, couch, or even orientdb. I have seen arguments for all of them to be used or not used compared to something like MySQL. But between themselves (nosql databases), which one would fit well with an ecommerce solution?
Note, for the use case, i wont be having thousands of transactions a second. Or similarly high write rates. they will be moderate sure, but at a level that any established database could handle.
CouchDB: Has master to master replication, which I could really use. If not, I will still have to implement the same functionality in code anyways. I need to be able to have a users database, sync with the mothership. (users will have their own, potentially localhost database, that could sync with the main domains server). Couch is also fast, once your queries have been stored in the db.As i will probably have a higher need for read performance. Though not by a lot.
MongoDB: queries are very easy and user friendly. Also, with the fact that end users may need to query for certain things at a given time that I may not be able to account for ahead of time, this seems like it may be a better fit. I dont have to pre-store my queries in the db. Does support atomic transactions, though only when writing to a single document at a time.
OrientDB: A graph database. much different that most people are used to, but with the needs, it could fit very well too. Orient has the benefits of being schemaless, as well as having support for ACID transactions. There is a lot of customer, and product relationships that a graph database could be great with. Orient also support master to master replication, similar to couchdb.
Dont get me wrong, I can see how to build this traditionally with something like MySQL, but the ease and simplicity of a nosql solution, is very attractive. Although, in my case, needing a schemaless solution, would be much easier in nosql rather than mysql. a given product may have more or less items, than another. and avoiding recreating a table whenever a new field is added, is preferrable.
So between these 3 (or even others you think may be better), what features in each could potentially work for, or against me in regards to an ecommerce based site, when dealing with customer transactions?
Edit: The reason I am not using an existing solution, is because with the integrated features I need, there are no solutions available out there. We are also aiming to use this as a full product for our company. There will be a handful of other integrations than just sales. It is also going to be working with a store's POS system.
Since e-commerce can encompass everything from shopping carts through to membership and recurring subscriptions, it is hard to guess exactly what requirements and complexity you are envisioning.
When constructing an e-commerce site, one of the early considerations should be investigating whether there is already an established e-commerce product or toolkit that could meet your requirements. There are many subtleties to processes like ordering, invoicing, payments, products, and customer relationships even when your use case appears to be straightforward. It may also be possible to separate your application into the catalog management aspects (possibly more custom) versus the billing (potentially third party, perhaps even via a hosted billing/payment API).
Another consideration should be who you are developing the e-commerce site for: is this to scratch your own itch, or for a client? Time, budget, and features for a custom build can be difficult to estimate and schedule .. and a niche choice of technology may make it difficult to find/hire additional development expertise.
A third consideration is what your language(s) of choice are for developing your application. Some languages will have more complete/mature/documented drivers and/or framework abstractions for the different databases.
That said, writing an e-commerce system appears to be a rite of passage for many developers ;-).
Edit: a lot has changed since this answer was originally posted in 2012 and you should definitely refer to current product information. For example, MongoDB has had support for Decimal128 values since MongoDB 3.4 (2016) and multi-document transactions since MongoDB 3.6 (2017).
Check the comparison of different available NoSql databases here. Suit your requirement as per that.
MongoDB 4 now multi-document ACID transactions! That makes it suitable for e-Commerce!
Check out: https://www.mongodb.com/transactions

Getting started with servers / networking for an iOS application

I'm developing an iOS social networking application that will involve users sharing and rating photos. I've spent about the last year or so on and off teaching myself how to develop in cocoa touch and now I'm ready to get started with the networking aspect of the app. Unfortunately, I have 0 networking / database experience and was wondering if anyone had any good advice on what things to consider and where / how to get started. In all likelihood I'm probably not going to build my own server and instead will go with something like rack space. Any advice would be appreciated.
Getting started to iOS Networking application. Here are the required things:-
You really need good backend developing experience in MySQL and complex database queries Plus experience in developing web services. At the root you need server host for backend and Admin module as you mentioned in question like race space or any other. You need to spend some months with mysql backend,web service and admin module implementation.
For fully functional social networking app your first task will be to manage users. Log in/Sign up will be there. Every user can post his status and can comment to other user's status.All status posts or comments will have their unique id and relationships to userid's table. May be image uploading and comments on photo will also be there So there will be lots of tables and relationships between them on backend side.
For Social Networking app, amount of work will be bigger on both backend/web service side and iOS side.
This is a pretty abstract question.
Eventually, you're going to have to focus on a particular architecture ( which database, which network technology), but before you do that, you need to get an outline idea of what the available options are and what the strengths and weaknesses of each are.
The server database is probably the easiest, as it doesn't make such a big difference. The choices are an sql database ( mysql, sqllite ....), not an sql database ( nosql, in memory tables) or some higher level abstraction where you can hide the differences and decide later ( core data for example). This may be constrained by your deployment decisions, you'll have more choices of rack options if you go for LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySql, PHP) for example. If you stick with apple kit and use a MacOS X back end, you may have additional options for network architecture ( DistributedObjects for instance.
The network architecture is also a difficult choice from a wide range of choices. There are really dozens of options with lots of different pros and cons. As this is your first foray into this area, I'd count ease of use and availability of help high among your priorities. Here are a few popular technologies you might want to investigate ( in alphabetical order to minimise flammability :) ). DistributedObjects ( apple), JAXP, JSON, RPC, SOAP, XML ( bare, without the soapy bits).
One more question you should ask yourself is "Can you get away with just a database connection, or do you need to do processing on the back end?". If you can, you might be able to get away with just using a remote database and then you only need to learn core data ( which will still keep you busy for a long time).
Once you've decided what technologies you want to use, then you can start learning.
You mentioned using a hosted server. You'll want to be able to run a test server locally. Fortunately almost all the worthwhile options for both database and network technology will run on any unix-like machine, so you can probably use your regular dev machine.
Also bear in mind that some of these choices are religious, so everyone you read will have strong biases ( myself definitely included).

What are the pros and cons of DynamoDB with respect to other NoSQL databases?

We use MongoDB database add-on on Heroku for our SaaS product. Now that Amazon launched DynamoDB, a cloud database service, I was wondering how that changes the NoSQL offerings landscape?
Specifically for cloud based services or SaaS vendors, how will using DynamoDB be better or worse as compared to say MongoDB? Are there any cost, performance, scalability, reliability, drivers, community etc. benefits of using one versus the other?
For starters, it will be fully managed by Amazon's expert team, so you can bet that it will scale very well with virtually no input from the end user (developer).
Also, since its built and managed by Amazon, you can assume that they have designed it to work very well with their infrastructure so you can can assume that performance will be top notch. In addition to being specifically built for their infrastructure, they have chosen to use SSD's as storage so right from the start, disk throughput will be significantly higher than other data stores on AWS that are HDD backed.
I havent seen any drivers yet and I think its too early to tell how the community will react to this, but I suspect that Amazon will have drivers for all of the most popular languages and the community will likely receive this well - and in turn create additional drivers and tools.
Using MongoDB through an add-on for Heroku effectively turns MongoDB into a SaaS product as well.
In reality one would be comparing whatever service a chosen provider has compared to what Amazon can offer instead of comparing one persistance solution to another.
This is very hard to do. Each provider will have varying levels of service at different price points and one could consider the option of running it on their own hardware locally for development purposes a welcome option.
I think the key difference to consider is MongoDB is a software that you can install anywhere (including at AWS or at other cloud service or in-house) where as DynamoDB is a SaaS available exclusively as hosted service from Amazon (AWS). If you want to retain the option of hosting your application in-house, DynamoDB is not an option. If hosting outside of AWS is not a consideration, then, DynamoDB should be your default choice unless very specific features are of higher consideration.
There's a table in the following link that summarizes the attributes of DynamoDB and Cassandra:
http://www.datastax.com/dev/blog/amazon-dynamodb
Something that needs improvement on DynamoDB in order to become more usable is the possibility to index columns other than the primary key.
UPDATE 1 (06/04/2013)
On 04/18/2013, Amazon announced support for Local Secondary Indexes, which made DynamoDB f***ing great:
http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2013/04/18/amazon-dynamodb-announces-local-secondary-indexes/
I have to be honest; I was very excited when I heard about the new DynamoDB and did attend the webinar yesterday. However it's so difficult to make a decision right now as everything they said was still very vague; I have no idea the functions that are going to be allowed / used through their service.
The one thing I do know is that scaling is automatically handled; which is pretty awesome, yet there are still so many unknowns that it's tough to really make a great analysis until all the facts are in and we can start using it.
Thus far I still see mongo as working much better for me (personally) in the project undertaking that I've been working on.
Like most DB decisions, it's really going to come down to a project by project decision of what's best for your need.
I anxiously await more information on the product, as for now though it is in beta and I wouldn't jump ship to adopt the latest and greatest only to be a tester :)
I think one of the key differences between DynamoDB and other NoSQL offerings is the provisioned throughput - you pay for a specific throughput level on a table and provided you keep your data well-partitioned you can always expect that throughput to be met. So as your application load grows you can scale up and keep you performance more-or-less constant.
Amazon DynamoDB seems like a pretty decent NoSQL solution. It is fast, and it is pretty easy to use. Other than having an AWS account, there really isn't any setup or maintenance required. The feature set and API is fairly small right now compared to MongoDB/CouchDB/Cassandra, but I would probably expect that to grow over time as feedback from the developer community is received. Right now, all of the official AWS SDKs include a DynamoDB client.
Pros
Lightning Fast (uses SSDs internally)
Really (really) reliable. (chances of write failures are lower)
Seamless scaling (no need to do manual sharding)
Works as webservices (no server, no configuration, no installation)
Easily integrated with other AWS features (can store the whole table into S3 or use EMR etc)
Replication is managed internally, so chances of accidental loss of data is negligible.
Cons
Very (very) limited querying.
Scanning is painful (I remember once a scanning through Java ran for 6 hours)
pre-defined throughput, which means sudden increase beyond the set throughput will be throttled.
throughput is partitioned as table is sharded internally. (which means if you had a throughput for 1000 and its partitioned in two and if you are reading only the latest data(from one part) then your throughput of reading is 500 only)
No joins, Limited indexing allowed (basically 2).
No views, triggers, scripts or stored procedure.
It's really good as an alternative to session storage in scalable application. Another good use would be logging/auditing in extensive system. NOT preferable for feature rich application with frequent enhancement or changes.

Which database back-end shall I use?

I am writing an iPhone app, that requires cloud back-end DB storage. I have a couple options in mind, and was wondering which one is better fit?
What I need:
be able to perform GRUD in the cloud from the iPhone app
the DB needs to scale (speed-wise) without much or any management
schema free
all i need is to store maybe 1 million records
Google App Engine:
Uses bigTable, scales, and schema free, but I need to write a RESTful interface
CouchDB:
Recently released iOS support, RESTful built-in, but I worry about scaling when syncing with remote server
SimpleDB: (seems to be my best pick)
Has iOS SDK, so I can do GRUD directly, auto scale (I probably won't be running into the 10GB limit), schema free
MongoDB:
Don't know much about, from what I hear, it's faster than SimpleDB, and easy to setup, but again I need to do the admin work
Cassandra:
Too much work, for what I need.
Any insight or feedback or correction is great appreciated.
Regards,
Johnny
If you're looking for zero management on your end, then you've already answered yourself that SimpleDB or GAE are probably your best options.
SimpleDB is probably better in your case, because it'll save you from having to write a simple RESTful interface on top of GAE.
Note that both of them aren't great in terms of speed. I worked with both and there's visible query latency. Unfortunately there's no way for you to tune that - you're completely in the hands of Amazon/Google. That's the price you pay for not managing the datastore yourself, so I guess you'll have to decide if you're willing to pay that price.
I recommend that you try SimpleDB, which is simple enough, first. If latency is a problem then you can move to hosting and tuning your own Mongo or some other option.
SQL Azure Services. Meets your requirements above.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL_Azure

Since I dont need more that 4gb of data storage,can I use oracle express for my web application?

I am developing a small web application,Its data size is constant.
i.e data dosent grow with date/user.
I would like to know if I can use Oracle Express for this application.
http://www.oracle.com/technology/software/htdocs/xe_lic_prod.html
Any use of the Oracle Database Express Edition is subject to the following limitations;
1. Express Edition is limited to a single instance on any server;
2. Express Edition may be installed on a multiple CPU server,
but may only be executed on one processor in any server;
3. Express Edition may only be used to support up to 4GB of user data
(not including Express Edition system data);
4. Express Edition may use up to 1 GB RAM of available memory.
So I would say, yes.
Does Oracle enforce these limits themselves? If not, how to limit the instance to run on only one CPU?
I think the limitations of Oracle are pretty deep. My experience with Oracle shows that they make money selling consultancy, and to do this they don't document their products. Expect to have a really though time if you want to do a non-default install or some fancy configuring.
Why not choose:
MySql, MS SQL Express or Postgre SQL ?
They are all free and have less limitations. If you develop your site using ASP.NET or Java or PHP all of these make sense. Postgre SQL is probably one of the strongest free database engines out there.
If you want to be really cool and flexible, use an ORM like (N)Hibernate or Linq. This will abstract the database you use, so you can easily change databases later on.
Without knowing the details of all the things you require my response will reflect that.
To name a few:
1. How many users will be connecting into this database?
2. Will it be CPU or IO bound system?
3. What DB features do you need?
Oracle Express will most likely handle your vague CURRENT needs. The issue you will most likely run into first is if your data grows beyond 4GB. I wouldn't assume your data will stay constant, few things stay constant. The pain of dealing with purging data every time you hit the 4GB data limit or having to move data to a new database is not worth the FREE marketing hook that got you to use it in the first place. If you don't plan to ever pay for an Oracle license you might be better off using an open source database such as PostgreSQL or even MySQL that won't have artificial limits placed on the software and who's license will always be free. Personally I would go with PostgreSQL.
I find Oracle Express a nice tool to get a quick install of Oracle on my laptop to learn with. I wouldn't use it for anything in production though many people probably do.
Those are my thoughts without knowing all your requirements.
And yes Oracle enforces the limitations stated previously by Thilo in the software.