Doradus began as a REST API with Lucene-like searching on top of Cassandra. As a result, its scalar data model is similar to Lucene’s: named data fields are typed as text, numbers, timestamps, etc. But as Doradus evolved, we wanted a strong linking feature, so we added bi-directional relationships via links. We also wanted to leverage the best of the NoSQL world: horizontal scalability, idempotent updates, etc. The result is a unique blend of features from Lucene, graph databases, and NoSQL databases.