{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,29]],"date-time":"2026-04-29T22:14:22Z","timestamp":1777500862090,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":17,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,15]],"date-time":"2026-01-15T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1768435200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Future Internet"],"abstract":"<jats:p>This paper presents a controlled comparative evaluation of SQL and NoSQL persistence mechanisms in containerized microservice architectures under variable workload conditions. Three persistence configurations\u2014SQL with indexing, SQL without indexing, and a document-oriented NoSQL database, including supplementary hybrid SQL variants used for robustness analysis\u2014are assessed across read-dominant, write-dominant, and mixed workloads, with concurrency levels ranging from low to high contention. The experimental setup is fully containerized and executed in a single-node environment to isolate persistence-layer behavior and ensure reproducibility. System performance is evaluated using multiple metrics, including percentile-based latency (p95), throughput, CPU utilization, and memory consumption. The results reveal distinct performance trade-offs among the evaluated configurations, highlighting the sensitivity of persistence mechanisms to workload composition and concurrency intensity. In particular, indexing strategies significantly affect read-heavy scenarios, while document-oriented persistence demonstrates advantages under write-intensive workloads. The findings emphasize the importance of workload-aware persistence selection in microservice-based systems and support the adoption of polyglot persistence strategies. Rather than providing absolute performance benchmarks, the study focuses on comparative behavioral trends that can inform architectural decision-making in practical microservice deployments.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/fi18010053","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,15]],"date-time":"2026-01-15T12:31:41Z","timestamp":1768480301000},"page":"53","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Benchmarking SQL and NoSQL Persistence in Microservices Under Variable Workloads"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"18","author":[{"given":"Nenad","family":"Pantelic","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Engineering, University of Kragujevac, 34000 Kragujevac, Serbia"}]},{"given":"Ljiljana","family":"Matic","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Economics, University of Kragujevac, 34000 Kragujevac, Serbia"}]},{"given":"Lazar","family":"Jakovljevic","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Engineering, University of Kragujevac, 34000 Kragujevac, Serbia"}]},{"given":"Stefan","family":"Eric","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Engineering, University of Kragujevac, 34000 Kragujevac, Serbia"}]},{"given":"Milan","family":"Eric","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Engineering, University of Kragujevac, 34000 Kragujevac, Serbia"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2681-0875","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Miladin","family":"Stefanovi\u0107","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Engineering, University of Kragujevac, 34000 Kragujevac, Serbia"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2856-6578","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Aleksandar","family":"Djordjevic","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Engineering, University of Kragujevac, 34000 Kragujevac, Serbia"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,15]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Dragoni, N., Giallorenzo, S., Lafuente, A.L., Mazzara, M., Montesi, F., Mustafin, R., and Safina, L. (2017). Microservices: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Present and Ulterior Software Engineering, Springer International Publishing.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-319-67425-4_12"},{"key":"ref_2","unstructured":"Fowler, M., and Lewis, J. (2025, October 30). Microservices: A Definition of This New Architectural Term. Available online: https:\/\/martinfowler.com\/articles\/microservices.html."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"42","DOI":"10.1109\/MS.2016.64","article-title":"Microservices Architecture Enables DevOps: Migration to Cloud-Native Architectures","volume":"33","author":"Balalaie","year":"2016","journal-title":"IEEE Softw."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Villamizar, M., Garc\u00e9s, O., Castro, H., Verano, M., Salamanca, L., Casallas, R., and Gil, S. (2015, January 23\u201325). Evaluating the Monolithic and the Microservice Architecture Pattern to Deploy Web Applications in the Cloud. Proceedings of the 2015 10th Computing Colombian Conference (10CCC), Bogot\u00e1, Colombia.","DOI":"10.1109\/ColumbianCC.2015.7333476"},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"50","DOI":"10.1145\/2890784","article-title":"Borg, Omega, and Kubernetes","volume":"59","author":"Burns","year":"2016","journal-title":"Commun. ACM"},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bucchiarone, A., Dragoni, N., Dustdar, S., Larsen, S.T., and Mazzara, M. (2020). Microservices Anti-Patterns: A Taxonomy. Microservices, Springer.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-030-31646-4"},{"key":"ref_7","unstructured":"dos Santos, O.P.N. (2022). Towards an Automatic Microservices Manager for Hybrid Cloud Edge Environments. [Master\u2019s Thesis, NOVA University Lisbon]."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"357","DOI":"10.1016\/bs.adcom.2017.08.003","article-title":"NoSQL Polyglot Persistence","volume":"109","author":"Deka","year":"2018","journal-title":"Adv. Comput."},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"12","DOI":"10.1145\/1978915.1978919","article-title":"Scalable SQL and NoSQL Data Stores","volume":"39","author":"Cattell","year":"2021","journal-title":"ACM SIGMOD Rec."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Pokorn\u00fd, J. (2011, January 5\u20137). NoSQL Databases: A Step to Database Scalability in Web and Cloud Applications. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Information Integration and Web-based Applications & Services, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.","DOI":"10.1145\/2095536.2095583"},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Khan, W., Kumar, T., Zhang, C., Raj, K., Roy, A.M., and Luo, B. (2023). SQL and NoSQL Database Software Architecture Performance Analysis and Assessments\u2014A Systematic Literature Review. Big Data Cogn. Comput., 7.","DOI":"10.3390\/bdcc7020097"},{"key":"ref_12","first-page":"13","article-title":"Hybrid Database System for Big Data Storage and Management","volume":"7","author":"James","year":"2017","journal-title":"Int. J. Comput. Sci. Eng. Appl."},{"key":"ref_13","first-page":"1202","article-title":"A Fresh Approach for Hybrid SQL\/NoSQL Database Design Based on Data Structuredness","volume":"13","year":"2018","journal-title":"Enterp. Inf. Syst."},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"431","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jksuci.2017.06.001","article-title":"Big Data Technologies: A Survey","volume":"30","author":"Oussous","year":"2018","journal-title":"J. King Saud Univ.-Comput. Inf. Sci."},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"40","DOI":"10.1145\/1435417.1435432","article-title":"Eventually Consistent","volume":"52","author":"Vogels","year":"2009","journal-title":"Commun. ACM"},{"key":"ref_16","unstructured":"AbouShanab, Z. (2024). Optimizing Containerized Spring Boot Microservices in Kubernetes: Development, Experimentation, and Performance Analysis. [Master\u2019s Thesis, E\u00f6tv\u00f6s Lor\u00e1nd University]."},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"13427","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2025.3525639","article-title":"Multitenancy in Single Instance of Data Persistence Service for Supporting Low-Code Platforms","volume":"13","author":"Costa","year":"2025","journal-title":"IEEE Access"}],"container-title":["Future Internet"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1999-5903\/18\/1\/53\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,15]],"date-time":"2026-01-15T13:01:35Z","timestamp":1768482095000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1999-5903\/18\/1\/53"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,15]]},"references-count":17,"journal-issue":{"issue":"1","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,1]]}},"alternative-id":["fi18010053"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/fi18010053","relation":{},"ISSN":["1999-5903"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1999-5903","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,15]]}}}