A good Data Engineer should be able to choose the appropriate type of database according to the need. There are lots of different types: Centralised database, Distributed database, NoSQL database, operational database, relational database, cloud database, object-oriented database, graph database, etc.

Let's zoom in for now on the relational and NoSQL databases.

NoSQL is an approach to database design that can accomodate a wide variety of data models, including key-value, document, columnar and graph formats. NoSQL, which stand for "not only SQL," is an alternative to traditional relational databases in which data is placed in tables and data schema is carefully designed before the database is built. NoSQL databases are especially useful for working with large sets of distributed data.

A relational database is a set of formally described tables from which data can be accessed or reassembled in many different ways without having to reorganize the database tables. The standard user and application programming interface (API) of a relational database is the Structured Query Language (SQL). SQL statements are used both for interactive queries for information from a relational database and for gathering data for reports.

Data Engineer Vs Data Scientist

Curr-Expansion - Introduction to Data Engineering

Exercise instructions