What kind of database does Teamtreehouse itself uses(MySQL/NoSQL).

Andrew Chalkley is correct, we use MySQL internally for any relational database needs. PostgreSQL is also a popular and rigorous solution, and is definitely worth a look if you're going to use a relational database.

Other data stores we use internally are memcache for caching, and Redis for queues and transient/non-critical data stores.

Before choosing a NoSQL solution, I'd recommend reading over this person's experience and giving it some serious consideration.

For further reading on the topic of databases and the trade-offs you have to make in relation to CAP, i'd recommend a read through this series of articles, which is both entertaining, terrifying, and illuminating (especially in regard to the reality vs the marketing hype w/r/t mongo).

Regards,

Nathan W

Treehouse Site Ops

edit: it should be noted that w/r/t that grimoire mysql article, a lot of those issues have been improved in recent versions. even so, it's well worth the read as an example of the types of issues you can face running a database system, and emphasizes the importance of carefully choosing a system appropriate to your use case.

At Treehouse I know we use MySQL for the most part. I don't know if any of our stack is NoSQL. I'll tag one of our Ops guys to let you know.

Relational databases are great for relational data! Hence the name :)

Generally, relational data is data you want kept around, NoSQL is often used for non-critical data that isn't relational, often used for caching, worker queues and other trivial content.

I would recommend NoSQL personally, but I can't seem to find any videos on it from the Treehouse library.

MongoDB is a popular solution. I would try out their "Try It Out" interactive tutorial.

Treehouse only cover MySQL in their own courses but they make reference to other databases. It would be good to see them delve into others especially non SQL based ones.