Re: Is a RDBMS needed?
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2011 23:46:17 +0300
Message-ID: <BANLkTins2_TQECV0iErjfnvroXi0+BV3Rw_at_mail.gmail.com>
I'd say that there are at least several potential questions to answer: 1) some non-functional requiremets like: - security
- necessary performance including how many concurrent users, how much data, what if they modify the same record etc etc - backup/restore - what if all the chat, discussions and probably some more important data will go into a black hole? - others have already mentioned some good aspects 2) some functional requirements like:
- reports - I'm always veeeery suspicious about new coool technologies and necessity to make some reports over all data. It usually works fine with one or few records, but reports on all items - no, no, not yet :)
- everything that will include scanning and probably modifying a big chunk of data, a change that causes necessity to modify many content objects
Speaking about Rdbmses - Oracle isn't the only rdbms and eneterprise edition isn't the only edition. SE and especially SE ONE costs next to nothing compared with a few person months of development of new system that will need some features like these. MySQL and PostgreSQL are also options without any licensing cost at all. Of course it also depends on available people and their skills, but reinventing the wheel could be quite dangerous and only few have succeeded.
And speaking about fathers and sons - Mark Twain said it probably best: When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished by how much he'd learned in seven years.
Gints Plivna
http://www.gplivna.eu
2011/6/9 Blake Wilson <dasebw_at_uwo.ca>:
> 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-lReceived on Thu Jun 09 2011 - 15:46:17 CDT