Re: Which Oracle book was this?
From: DA Morgan <damorgan_at_psoug.org>
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2008 07:13:39 -0700
Message-ID: <1225030413.380617@bubbleator.drizzle.com>
>>> Years ago, I skimmed an Oracle book at the bookstore.
>>> I'm sure it was written by Tom Kyte.
>>> In it, he critiqued a system that would store data in
>>> rows, instead of simple columns!
>>> One criticism being that it performed very badly.
>>> So, instead of a typical table structure:
>>> field1
>>> field2
>>> field3
>>> field4
>>> There was a lookup table with field codes, and what they meant.
>>> Fieldcode_id
>>> Fieldcode_name
>>> The "data" table would be structured:
>>> Fieldcode_id
>>> value
>>> etc.
>>> Doing simple queries was of course much more complex.
>>> I remember reading words to the effect:
>>> "How did it perform? Horribly, pathetically, awfully!"
>>> I'm unfortunately dealing with such a system now,
>>> and would like to show this critique to the brass.
>>> Which book can I find this in please?
>>> Thanks a lot!
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2008 07:13:39 -0700
Message-ID: <1225030413.380617@bubbleator.drizzle.com>
hpuxrac wrote:
> On Oct 25, 12:29 am, Michael Austin <maus..._at_firstdbasource.com> > wrote: >> dba_..._at_yahoo.com wrote:
>>> Years ago, I skimmed an Oracle book at the bookstore.
>>> I'm sure it was written by Tom Kyte.
>>> In it, he critiqued a system that would store data in
>>> rows, instead of simple columns!
>>> One criticism being that it performed very badly.
>>> So, instead of a typical table structure:
>>> field1
>>> field2
>>> field3
>>> field4
>>> There was a lookup table with field codes, and what they meant.
>>> Fieldcode_id
>>> Fieldcode_name
>>> The "data" table would be structured:
>>> Fieldcode_id
>>> value
>>> etc.
>>> Doing simple queries was of course much more complex.
>>> I remember reading words to the effect:
>>> "How did it perform? Horribly, pathetically, awfully!"
>>> I'm unfortunately dealing with such a system now,
>>> and would like to show this critique to the brass.
>>> Which book can I find this in please?
>>> Thanks a lot!
>> I was aware of at least one system - for a name-brand pharmaceutical >> company that used this design. How did this one perform? It was >> running DEC now Oracle/Rdb (OpenVMS) and when tuned properly really >> screamed. Yes, the queries were very ugly, but when properly configured >> - did very well. > > This just doesn't sound right. > >> One benefit was it flexibility in self-describing the contents. When I >> first arrived at the site and saw this design, I was very skeptical as >> to how it would perform. Using MIXED Storage areas (loosely analogous >> to a IOT where index and the data for that index reside in the same data >> page (extent in Oracle terms)) performance was more than adequate. > > Reasonable designs for a relational database are done using ERD's and > 3nf.
Flat files are fast.
Relational designs promote data integrity.
There's a reason no one uses 5NF.
We compromise in the middle where we obtain adequate data integrity
with adequate performance.
-- Daniel A. Morgan Oracle Ace Director & Instructor University of Washington damorgan_at_x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond) Puget Sound Oracle Users Group www.psoug.orgReceived on Sun Oct 26 2008 - 09:13:39 CDT