Rick's description screams data partition. EXTERNAL table looks to be
a very simple ETT (extraction, transformation, transportation) tool
for a data warehouse. It is pretty neat in that, once the meta data is
defined within the database, you can run your SQL against an external
flat file much as you would with a table. You can even gather
statistics for them. Not sure it would be useful to Rick though. Not
sure either how sueful it would be in a DW environment, as it can not
be compared to a full blown ETT tool such as Informatics PowerMart.
Norman Dunbar <Norman.Dunbar_at_lfs.co.uk> wrote in message news:<E2F6A70FE45242488C865C3BC1245DA702696EA2_at_lnewton.leeds.lfs.co.uk>...
> Rick,
>
> don't quote me on this, but in Oracle 9i you have EXTERNAL tables which
> can be queried through standard SQL (with a few limitations). If your
> tape robot is able to load the correct tape on demand, this MIGHT be a
> way forward.
>
> I'm not using 9I yet, so I can't say for certain.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Norman.
>
> -------------------------------------
> Norman Dunbar
> Database/Unix administrator
> Lynx Financial Systems Ltd.
> mailto:Norman.Dunbar_at_LFS.co.uk
> Tel: 0113 289 6265
> Fax: 0113 289 3146
> URL: http://www.Lynx-FS.com
> -------------------------------------
Received on Wed Jul 24 2002 - 17:47:37 CDT
