Choosing right database system: Row or column-store

The new generation of applications like Business Intelligence, data warehouses, Social networking etc. requires processing of terabytes or petabytes of data. This is achieved by distributed processing. This is the major reason for the power of web companies such as Google, Amazon, and Salesforce etc. In this case, relational databases are found to be inadequate in distributed processing involving very large number of servers and handling big data applications. The systems like columnar database have attempted to address the problems in storing information using traditional database system. The database system design should be chosen to handle large pool of data to get analytical performance. The present study focuses on identifying the problems in the relational database system and highlighting the benefits gained by usage of columnar database system in area of business intelligence or data warehouse systems.