The document discusses SQL versus NoSQL databases. It provides background on SQL databases and their advantages, then explains why some large tech companies have adopted NoSQL databases instead. Specifically, it describes how companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Google have such massive amounts of data that traditional SQL databases cannot adequately handle the scale, performance, and flexibility needs. It then summarizes some popular NoSQL databases like Cassandra, Hadoop, MongoDB that were developed to solve the challenges of scaling to big data workloads.