Is the Relational Database Doomed? is the title of a very interesting article exloring the pro’s and con’s of "key/value" databases, a common data structuring technique in Cloud Computing. Clearly data management and modeling is evolving along with the technology we are using to store and access it
Due to the fluidic nature of the Cloud Computing architecture, your data could move around. A system has to be devised that lets you keep track of where your data is, when you need it. Traditional Vertical Scaling (building bigger and bigger boxes) has natural and obvious constraints. It is not a model that lends itself well to cloud models. The "key/value" data model described in the article is one technique for organizing certain kinds of data in a highly scalable array of inexpensive computing resources (a cloud).
In the comments to the article someone points out neo4j, an open source database technology which models data using Graph Theory techniques rather than as Tables. As someone who really enjoyed graph theory in college, this data modelling approach really intriques me and will require much closer study as time permits. (The graduate level Graph Theory course I took as an Undergraduate at U.Mass Lowell was one of the most challenging, mind expanding and interesting classes of my undergraduate and post-graduate education.)