Oracle has officially unveiled its NoSQL database, making downloads available from its website. “It’s a distributed key/value store with built-in high availability, and it also offers users options as to the level of consistency that they want,” explained Oracle’s Marie-Anne Neimat. “Consistency is made somewhat easier because the user can choose the level of consistency he or she wants, and can therefore trade rigid consistency for latency. One can be totally consistent at the potential cost of high latency, or one can say, ‘I’m willing to compromise on consistency, but I’ll have very fast response times.'”
In a white paper released along with the database, Oracle takes the bold step of claiming to have invented NoSQL. Oracle’s NoSQL is based on Berkeley DB, whose creator Innobase does have a legitimate claim to inventing NoSQL technology. Oracle acquired Innobase in 2005.
