Four NoSQLs in Four Fun Fortnights: Exploring NoSQLs in a Corporate IT Environment

The argument of SQL vs NoSQL always requires the answer "It depends." If the participants in the argument about which database is better or more appropriate in a given situation have no background in any NoSQL database, then it is difficult to make informed decisions. In general, NoSQL databases arrange themselves into four groups: key-value stores, columnar databases, graph databases, and document databases. This paper describes a project to use gamification to encourage members of a busy corporate IT department to learn about the four groups of NoSQLs and give them brief hands-on experiences with one of each of the four categories: Redis, Cassandra, Neo4j, and MongoDB. The encouragement was done by using a combination of physical and virtual treasure hunts. Eight fun treasure hunts were created (two for each group of NoSQL) where participants in the office either worked individually or teamed up with other participants to find data hidden in each of the different types of NoSQL database. This data would then lead to a physical treasure box full of chocolates which was hidden in the office common area.