Relational databases define a strict structure and provide a rigid way to maintain data for a software application. Apache's open source CouchDB offers a new method of storing data, in what is referred to as a schema-free document-oriented database model.

The open source Apache CouchDB database project hit a major milestone this week with the release of version 0.11. The release is an important one for the NoSQL database variant as it matures toward its 1.0 release.

A couple weeks ago I wrote about NoSQL and provided a short overview of the landscape of non-relational databases. One that has become increasingly popular is Apache CouchDB, so I’d like to spend a couple weeks digging into it a bit and talking about why it’s so interesting. Before I do, it’s worth noting that Ubuntu 9.10 was just released and uses CouchDB under the hood.

Apache CouchDB is a document-oriented database that can be queried and indexed in a MapReduce fashion using JavaScript. CouchDB also offers incremental replication with bi-directional conflict detection and resolution.

According to its motto, the underlying premise behind the open source CouchDB NoSQL database is about helping developers "relax" -- chiefly by providing them with a simple, powerful database alternative.

"I’ve been poking around with CouchDb, like all the cool kids. It’s pretty clever; a database which isn’t relational, where the connection API is REST, and where queries are written in JavaScript and data is returned as JSON..."

"The CouchDB development team is proud to announce CouchDB version 0.7.0 is now available at http://code.google.com/p/couchdb/downloads/list ..."

The CouchDB developers at CouchIO have had some fun releasing a rap video, but tell The H they are serious about bringing their NoSQL database to the world

SQL-based relational database management systems (RDBMS) are beginning to be challenged by a new movement of NoSQL databases. Among those NoSQL databases is the open source CouchDB...