Q6Big Data Analytics
Question
2 marks
What are column-family databases?
Answer
Column-family databases (like Apache Cassandra or HBase) are massive NoSQL architectures that physically store data strictly by columns rather than traditional SQL rows.
This architectural physics allows for explosive analytical speed. If an engineer wants to calculate the mathematical average of a "Salary" column across 1 billion users, the disk head only reads that exact physical column on the hard drive, completely bypassing the massive overhead of reading the entire row.