mca blog

i've posted an article that outlines an easy method for implementing a word search using Azure Table Storage. no ORDER-BY or JOIN needed to generate fast word search results on basic text.

here's the teaser:

As 'schema-less' storage becomes more prevalent, the patterns and practices learned from relational data storage models may be inappropriate for familiar data-handling situations. One example is the task of implementing a simple word search pattern for a short message application (i.e. Twitter). With schema-less storage systems, using near-match keywords such as LIKE, linking different table sets using JOIN, and sorting the returned results via secondary indexes are often unavailable. Instead, new implementation strategies must be employed to get the same results.

This article will walk the reader through a simple scenario (implementing a word search against stored messages) and compare common relational data model practices to techniques that work for schema-less storage models. Azure Table Storage is used in this example, but the same approach will work for similar storage systems including Amazon's SimpleDB.

In addition, this article outlines a some strategies that can be applied to a wide range schema-less storage solutions.

hopefully, i'll have the time to do more of these kinds of articles in the near future.

check it out and leave me some feedback.