On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, Matt Sergeant wrote:
> > > Most modern DBMS software should be able to handle 50 queries per second
> > > on decent hardware, provided the conditions are right. You're not going to
> > > get anything better with flat files.
> >
> > Hmm... I guess it all depends on what your queries look like, but you can
> > get better results from flat files if you put them in a percise layout.
> > Granted if you are talking about having a million lines in a single
> > flat file, then I definately agree with you.
>
> I think the limiting factors are quite a bit sooner than a million
> lines. What I'm trying to get across is that developers should be
> focussing on letting the DBMS do what a DBMS does best - queries. The DB
> is far better placed (and generally better developed) to do the
> optimisation than trying to come up with a flat file strategy that works
> with your system.
If you're always looking stuff up on simple ID numbers and
"stuff" is a very simple data structure, then I doubt any DBMS can
beat
open D, "/data/1/12/123456" or ...
from a fast local filesystem.
> I really think that sometimes going for a flat file layout *can* be much
> > more reliable and scalable then RDBMS software. It all really depends on
> > what you plan to do with the data and what you would like to get out of
> > it.
>
> I think you chose the wrong words there. I think a flat file layout can be
> more performant than an RDBMS, but I don't think its going to be
> more reliable or scalable than an RDBMS. There are far too many locking
> issues and transaction issues necessary for the terms "reliable and
> scalable", unless you're willing to spend a few years re-coding Oracle :-)
Not if your scenario is writes on one box (possibly in only one
process) and reads on many boxes, many processes - then all that
becomes really simple.
In other words: it all depends. :-)
- ask (who is not using "flatfile databases" anywhere currently,
but think they can useful anyway)
--
ask bjoern hansen - <http://www.netcetera.dk/~ask/>
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