Re: Is a RDBMS needed?

Content management systems (like jackrabbit) are built on persistence provided by RDBMS.    The CMS (everything is content), makes accessing the data potentially more developer friendly potentially.

Think about DBFS.. what does it do?  It makes accessing files more friendly to O/S tools that expect file based interface.  if you agree that everything in a LMS is "content", than using a CMS that is backed by an RDBMS to make everything appear as content might make sense.

Is it the most efficient approach to retrieving information? 

No.  Is it great if all access is "content" based?  yes.

As soon as you want to access the information another way, get ready to create some interesting and inefficient DB views and resort to SQL.

It definitely reminds me of the ORDBMS craze and dozens of various postings on how convoluted (and inefficient) it can become when the question asked doesn't match the model of how the content/object was persisted.

Job

• On Thu, 6/9/11, Wayne Smith <wts_at_maine.edu> wrote:

From: Wayne Smith <wts_at_maine.edu>
Subject: Re: Is a RDBMS needed?
To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Date: Thursday, June 9, 2011, 3:19 PM

Good new things are built every day.  For every good new thing there are probably many not so good things built.   For every ga-zillion good things, something turns out great and right for its time.

Since it appears to me that all Learning Management Systems suck in substantial ways, maybe this one has a chance?  Time will tell.

Cheers, Wayne

Google before you ask. (R. Theriault)

On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 2:38 PM, Hans Forbrich <fuzzy.graybeard_at_gmail.com> wrote:

Any technology is potentially useful under certain circumstances.

    I'd be asking the bigger 'how does this fit in our organization'
    questions:

    - do we have the skills to support it?  How 'spensive to get 'em?

    - what is the backup/recovery strategy and has it been proven?

    - what are the manageability capabilities?

    - how scalable is it? (proof needed, not just a bit-head's
    assertion)

    - are there references?

    

    Sounds like the management would deem this to be a mission critical
    app.  So I'd like some proof that the content management is robust. 
    

    

    As a fellow dinosaur, I think you are correct in raising the
    questions.  Get someone with experience in the technology to provide
    trustworthy answers. ;-)

    

    /Hans 

    

    On 09/06/2011 9:22 AM, Blake Wilson wrote:
    
      
      Here at the University of Western Ontario we are looking at
      replacing our current Learning Management System. The current
      choices seem to be similar in technology and infrastructure - web
      tier, load balancer, application tier, back end RDBMS and some
      sort of content management system for the course content.

      

      However, the next release of one of our options will not have a
      RDBMS in the solution. It will be replaced by Apache Jackrabbit.
      The new system will have everything treated as content,
      including grades, test questions and answers, discussion threads,
      syllabi, personal profiles, chat messages, and so on.

      

      This seems like quite a departure from normal RDBMS based
      solutions. Is this a good idea? Am I being a dinosaur by thinking
      that this is not a good idea? Do I need to keep up with the times?
      Is this the future of databases? This really looks to me like a
      return to design of 20 years ago.

      

      Thanks,

      Blake Wilson

    
    

  

--

http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l Received on Thu Jun 09 2011 - 15:11:54 CDT