A Comprehensive Spark-Based Layer for Converting Relational Databases to NoSQL

Abstract

Currently, the continuous massive growth in the size, variety, and velocity of data is defined as big data. Relational databases have a limited ability to work with big data. Consequently, not only structured query language (NoSQL) databases were utilized to handle big data because NoSQL represents data in diverse models and uses a variety of query languages, unlike traditional relational databases. Therefore, using NoSQL has become essential, and many studies have attempted to propose different layers to convert relational databases to NoSQL; however, most of them targeted only one or two models of NoSQL, and evaluated their layers on a single node, not in a distributed environment. This study proposes a Spark-based layer for mapping relational databases to NoSQL models, focusing on the document, column, and key–value databases of NoSQL models. The proposed Spark-based layer comprises of two parts. The first part is concerned with converting relational databases to document, column, and key–value databases, and encompasses two phases: a metadata analyzer of relational databases and Spark-based transformation and migration. The second part focuses on executing a structured query language (SQL) on the NoSQL. The suggested layer was applied and compared with Unity, as it has similar components and features and supports sub-queries and join operations in a single-node environment. The experimental results show that the proposed layer outperformed Unity in terms of the query execution time by a factor of three. In addition, the proposed layer was applied to multi-node clusters using different scenarios, and the results show that the integration between the Spark cluster and NoSQL databases on multi-node clusters provided better performance in reading and writing while increasing the dataset size than using a single node.