When systems are under load, it is usually the database that is a bottleneck.  You can unblock the flow of data by taking the database out of the equation, but is this realistic, possible or desirable?  This session starts by calling bull on database ivory towers, exploring the options that database professionals seldom consider but are already becoming mainstream with highly scalable and performant systems.  Some of the newer approaches such as caching, eventual consistency, NoSQL databases and complex event processing are covered and their pros, cons and applications discussed