Flavio Stutz wrote:
We have some advantages in using a DB based Wiki:
Flavio,
I won't argue that there aren't some advantages provided by using
a database; there certainly are, but there are also disadvantages.
But amongst your list I didn't see that a justification for a
database as actually an improvement, ala:
- backup capabilities provided by database server;
If the wiki using any of the file providers is on a server being backed
up, its files will be backed up as well. One advantage is that the
backup content is readily available (as files) whereas a backed up
database must be restored en toto in order to access a single file.
- possibility to install Wiki server on cluster;
With a file-based provider this is still possible; one just points
the jspwiki.fileSystemProvider.pageDir property at a shared location.
But this brings up a very real problem with clustered wikis: if there
are more than one WikiEngine writing to either the file provider or
a database provider, the WikiEngine doesn't have any mechanism to
deal with that, i.e., if there are three machines in the cluster
there are three WikiEngine instances all writing to the same provider.
This problem is basically the same with either a file provider or a
database provider.
- search and indexing provided by database server;
Search and indexing are provided in JSPWiki by JSPWiki, not the
backend provider. If the database server is providing indexing,
that would be redundant to (and unsupported by) that already in
JSPWiki (Lucene).
- the use of server disks are dangerous because when it's
full the server may go down (need monitoring);
If one's disks are filling up the database solution is even
worse because when the system fails it will likely corrupt
the database, whereas with a file provider only the last
file written (the one that hits the limit) wouldn't get
written. But if one's server disk is filling up, that's a
much bigger problem than any wiki should have to deal with,
and I've never heard of this problem when using a hosted
solution (i.e., it should NEVER happen on a professionally-
run server).
Database solutions are also more complicated to configure and
install, to migrate between versions (or even databases), more
difficult to debug, and also increase the size of the JSPWiki
distribution (as was just posted, Hibernate is 8MB).
But that said, databases *may* provide higher performance
under some high-volume circumstances (though I've not seen
this actually demonstrated) and can be a better solution when
trying to integrate with existing content (though that kind
of thing may be better handled by a real content management
system), and if a metadata solution for JSPWiki is established,
would be likely better hosted as part of the individual page
record.
That is certainly how I'm handling metadata in my own database
solution, XNodeProvider, which is an XML database back-ended
by Berkeley DB JE. This will be released along with Ceryle
sometime fairly soon. Though I don't currently have any plans
to extricate it from within Ceryle, if someone wanted to do
that work I'd be *completely* supportive. I am looking for
collaborators, any experienced Java programmers who want to
take on any of the various plans at
http://altheim.4java.ca/ceryle/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Ideas
[every time I post a wiki URL I'm reminded that the short
view constructor doesn't yet work reliably... *sigh*]
If you want to take a look at XNode, tomorrow I'll try to
remember to post the entire Ceryle javadoc API online (I just
removed it when switching ISPs since the one there was
obsolete). So if I do remember, it will be at:
http://www.altheim.com/ceryle/api/
probably within 24-36 hours from now.
One might note that Berkeley DB is now owned by Oracle. I'm
hoping that means they'll *improve* it as opposed to what
Novell did with SuSE linux after they bought it.
Murray
...........................................................................
Murray Altheim <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> === = =
http://www.altheim.com/murray/ = = ===
SGML Grease Monkey, Banjo Player, Wantanabe Zen Monk = = = =
In the evening
The rice leaves in the garden
Rustle in the autumn wind
That blows through my reed hut. -- Minamoto no Tsunenobu
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