CARFAX, the online vehicle tracking and valuation website, built its first database in 1984 based on technology named OpenVMS. At the time, it was cutting edge for its ability to handle millions of records.

But the company grew. “We had a hard time scaling it and finding people to work on OpenVMS,” says Jai Hirsch, senior systems architect for data technologies at CARFAX. The company needed a new database.

For years the default enterprise databases have been based on SQL, a programming language that databases from Oracle, Microsoft, SAP and many other companies predominantly use. But increasingly, SQL databases aren’t an ideal fit for companies like CARFAX. Traditionally, SQL databases are based on rows and columns; CARFAX has 13.6 billion records associated with 700 million vehicles. A column-based system would have required thousands of columns and tabs, but for any given vehicle maybe only a dozen of them would be populated. It just wasn’t ideal for CARFAX.  

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