RE: Death of the database

The first one was where the app developers said they didn’t need DBA help because they were going to store everything as Java Serializable Objects (JSOs) – so every table was a tuple like (PRODUCT_ID number, PRODUCT_PROPERTIES blob).  Worked ok for about 3 months (where I had less work).  Then they came back to my team when queries were slow, and no one could browse the data, and no one could write reports on it…  And of course we ended up structuring the data back into regular tables (which ended up with more work for me).

The second one was where we received a custom developed invoice application that made heavy use of XML CLOBs – so every table was a tuple like (INVOICE_ID number, INVOICE_CONTENTS clob).  Worked ok for 2 months (where I had less work).  Then my management threw out the product because the text-based indexes were slow, kept needing re-builds, no one could browse the data, and no one could write reports on it…