Data modelling in the NoSQL world: A contradiction?

NoSQL systems have recently obtained significant attention, and have been widely used in many development activities. There are many systems in this family, and they are indeed very different from one another, both in the way they allow data to be organized and in the functions they support. As a consequence, many of the NoSQL advocates claim that the traditional notions of model and modeling are not relevant in this area. We argue that, nevertheless, some data modeling issues can be useful, and illustrate two research directions in which we have been involved. First, we show that, as the variety of systems and models can create difficulties in developers and in their organizations, modeling-based approach leverage the search for standardization and uniform access. Second, we argue that data models can provide a basis to the definition of generic approaches to logical and physical design.