---
title: "This week's database news, issue 74"
publication: "DB Weekly"
issue: 74
published_at: "2015-10-09"
canonical_url: "https://dbweekly.com/issues/74"
---

Database Weekly 74   . 

This week's database news -[Read this on the Web](http://dbweekly.com/issues/74) 

[Database Weekly](http://dbweekly.com) Issue 74 — October 9, 2015     

Featured [Why SQL Is Simply Awesome](http://www.vertabelo.com/blog/notes-from-the-lab/why-sql-is-neither-legacy-nor-low-level-but-simply-awesome?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — Lukas Eder, founder of Data Geekery, waxes lyrical on SQL and dispels some commonly repeated fallacies while looking at its strengths. Lukas Eder [Couchbase 4.0 Released, Adds Multi Dimensional Scaling and More](http://www.zdnet.com/article/couchbase-4-0-released-adds-multi-dimensional-scaling-and-more/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — [Couchbase](http://www.couchbase.com/nosql-databases/couchbase-server) 4.0 is available, bringing secondary indexes, geo-spatial indexes, workload isolation, and a new storage engine. ZDNet [You Probably Don’t Use SQL INTERSECT or EXCEPT Often Enough](http://blog.jooq.org/2015/10/06/you-probably-dont-use-sql-intersect-or-except-often-enough/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — While JOIN operations are much more versatile, they are also more complex for the simple tasks that can be solved by UNION, INTERSECT, and EXCEPT. Data Geekery [Redis Performance Dashboard and Autoscaling from RedisGreen](https://dashboard.redisgreen.net/new?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2015b&utm_content=primary&utm_term=findout+autoscaling+performance) — Ever wonder what your Redis server was actually doing? Find out with RedisGreen's dashboard and monitoring tools. RedisGreensponsored [![\](https://copm.s3.amazonaws.com/7dc904fd.png)](https://dashboard.redisgreen.net/new?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2015b&utm_content=primary&utm_term=findout+autoscaling+performance) [How Airbnb Partitioned Its Main Database in Two Weeks](http://nerds.airbnb.com/how-we-partitioned-airbnbs-main-db/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — A walk through how Airbnb used MySQL’s replication on Amazon RDS to partition the database with only brief downtime and without writing any bookkeeping or migration code. Airbnb Engineering [What PostgreSQL Has Over Other Open Source SQL Databases](https://www.compose.io/articles/what-postgresql-has-over-other-open-source-sql-databases/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — First in a series of posts looking at Postgres’ strengths. In this outing, it looks at the storage of data. Composeopinion [AWS Database Migration Service](https://aws.amazon.com/dms/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — Amazon has unveiled a preview of a new AWS service to help you migrate databases to AWS without any downtime. It supports all widely used databases. Amazontools news [SpaceCurve: An Utterly Unique And Absurdly Fast Geospatial Database](http://www.jandrewrogers.com//2015/10/08/spacecurve/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — “[SpaceCurve](http://spacecurve.com/) is a prototype of a new class of database architecture. It fuses two novel computer science foundations that make it optimal for workloads that mix extremely high concurrent write rates with low-latency parallel queries.” J.​ Andrew Rogers [How to Make a Box-and-Whisker Plot in SQL](https://blog.modeanalytics.com/how-to-make-box-and-whisker-plot-sql/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — Understanding how your data is distributed is critical for any analysis. Box-and-whisker plots are great for summarizing distributions and comparing distributions across datasets. Here’s how to create them in SQL. Benn Stancil Jobs [Want to spend less time job searching? Apply to the best startups in 60 seconds.](https://underdog.io/?utm_source=newsletters&utm_medium=dbweekly&utm_content=spendlesstime&utm_campaign=q4_15) — If you’re accepted, startup decision-makers will email you as soon as next Monday. You decide where to interview and where to work. Now open in SF, NYC, and remote. Join the Underdog.io platform today! Underdog.​io In brief [Amazon QuickSight: Fast & Easy to Use Business Intelligence for Big Data](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/amazon-quicksight-fast-easy-to-use-business-intelligence-for-big-data-at-110th-the-cost-of-traditional-solutions/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) Amazontools news [Caching a MongoDB Database with Redis](http://www.sitepoint.com/caching-a-mongodb-database-with-redis/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) SitePointtutorial [Easy Load-Balancing and High-Availability using MySQL Router](http://mysqlhighavailability.com/easy-load-balancing-and-high-availability-using-mysql-router/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) MySQL High Availabilitytutorial [Combined Row-Based and Columnar Storage in PostgreSQL 9.5](https://www.citusdata.com/blog/14-marco/273-combined-row-based-and-columnar-storage-postgresql-95?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) Citus Datatutorial [Introduction to Redis Data Structures: Sets](http://blog.mongodirector.com/introduction-to-redis-data-structures-sets/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) Vaibhawtutorial [Protecting MySQL Passwords with the sha256_password Plugin](http://mysqlserverteam.com/protecting-mysql-passwords-with-the-sha256_password-plugin/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) MySQL Server Blogtutorial [Clash of the Titans: MapReduce vs. Spark for Large Scale Data Analytics [PDF\]](http://www.vldb.org/pvldb/vol8/p2110-shi.pdf?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — An academic paper Shi, Qiu, Minhas, et al.​ [Redis Keys in RAM](https://redislabs.com/blog/redis-keys-in-ram?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) — A funny Dr Seuss style tribute to Redis. RedisLabs [PostgreSQL Monitoring Cheatsheet](http://russ.garrett.co.uk/2015/10/02/postgres-monitoring-cheatsheet/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) Russ Garrett [Ask HN: Anything Better Than Tableau for Data Viz, Dashboards?](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10319777&utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) Hacker Newsopinion [Ask HN: Implementing a graph database using Postgres tables for nodes and edges?](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10316872&utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) Hacker News [Store Your User Data Easily and Securely. No Database Needed.](https://stormpath.com/?utm_source=db-weekly&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=user-store-no-db-required) — Why build, secure, and maintain a database just for user data? Stormpath stores user profiles easily and securely, with up to 10MB of custom JSON data. Stormpathtools sponsored [SampleClean: Fast and Accurate Query Processing on Dirty Data](http://sampleclean.org/?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) sampleclean.​orgtools [libsl3: A C++ wrapper for SQLite3](http://a4z.bitbucket.org/docs/libsl3/html/index.html?utm_source=dbweekly&utm_medium=email) bitbucket.​orgcode    

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