MarkLogic Corp. is strengthening ­data integration features, enhancing security and improving workload management capabilities via support for containers in the first major new release of its namesake NoSQL database management system since the debut of version 9.0 two years ago.

The company, which claimed its NoSQL engine is as fast and scalable as relational alternatives, is adding a reference framework to the core product that can be used to build centralized data hubs, making it easier to orchestrate data ingestion and curation. A new streamlined application program interface is also intended to make the process of building data hubs simpler, while data ingestion and performance enhancements make operations faster and more secure.

MarkLogic isn’t trying to get into the master data management or extract/transform/load business, but “we see these integration features as things that should be happening in a database instead of in the pipeline,” said David Gorbet (pictured), senior vice president of engineering. “All customers are struggling with integrating data from multiple sources.”

Another major new feature called “ontology-driven entity extraction” enables developers to identify patterns in unstructured data and extract or mark them up for improved search performance, tagging and data governance.

“The major theme of this release is the move to a smart database that understands what your data represents,” Gorbet said. The entity extraction features do that by using a semantic model that can associate policies or labels with data types. For example, he said, “you can flag a piece of customer data as personally identifiable information and machine learning will automatically apply security roles based upon that information.”

By using domain-specific ontologies, customers can also create relationships based upon their own taxonomies. For example, the database can automatically categorize cardiac catheters as a subset of implantable devices and return that result in a search query. “Many customers already have predefined ontologies, but they’ve never been able to define them in the DBMS,” Gorbet said.

Improved cloud data security features enable MarkLogic encryption to be connected to Amazon Web Services Inc.’s key management services. The database vendor also now supports Amazon Virtual Private Cloud with new cloud formation templates for more secure deployments. A new Configuration Management API simplifies some data operations for self-service deployment.

Also new is support for Docker Inc. containers, which enable applications to run unchanged across multiple computers and operating systems. The feature enables portability between on-premises and cloud environments as well as more flexible workload management. Maintenance upgrades have been made significantly faster with reduced downtime and faster restarts. Customers also now have the option to encrypt their databases on installation.

MarkLogic offers a free developer version and enterprise licenses starting at $18,000 per year.

Image: MarkLogic