This is guest post by Sergei Sheinin, creator of the 2DX Web UI Database Cluster Framework, a low latency big data cluster with in-memory noSQL DBMS Web Browser client.

When I began working in the field of data management the disconnect between rigid structure of relational database tables and free form of documents managed by end users and their businesses stood out as a technical and managerial hurdle. On the one hand there were strict definitions of normalized relational database models and unstructured document formats on the other. Often the users in charge of changing document structures held organizational responsibilities far removed from database modeling or programming. On one occasion I was involved in a project where call center operators made on the fly decisions to update a document structure based on phone conversations with customers. Such updates had to be streamed into a relational back-end creating havoc in database structure and build of table columns.

In seeking a permanent solution I researched merits of Entity-Attribute-Value database schema and its applications. This technique proved successful in enabling front end users to modify relational-bound documents through performing updates to structure described in their metadata. However application of EAV raised its own issues, for example accommodation of updated document metadata at times required changes to definitions of the relational tables, attention of developers due to complexity of application layer in client-server interoperability, rapidly growing fact tables and performance of multiple join statements in select queries...