5 ms·

This seems suspiciously like a marketing presentation for VoltDB more than debunking myth about SQL. Tl;Dr; SQL is too slow ? No, VoltDB is Fast !

by Kesty 10y ago

jhugg 10y ago
It was presented in 2010 at gluecon and was the launch deck for VoltDB. A big chuck is marketing, yes. Doesn’t make it wrong as a counterexample. Though in 2016, there are a lot more fast SQL systems and it’s unclear this myth is still as mythical as it was?
mangeletti 10y ago
I agree. This is basically marketing material from VoltDB. I've flagged it, not because it's not interesting (some of it is), but because marketing propaganda can't really be trusted as a source of information.
- BenoitP 10y ago
  While it is clearly propaganda for VoltDB, it does a good job of adressing some of the myths of SQL-slowness that we don't see very often. Usually a lot of people saying SQL is slow is because they don't really use it well. He doesn't talk about indexing and statistics [1] for example. But he talks about ODBC/JDBC because, while it is usually fast enough, a lot of people overlook the fact that these interfaces hold transactions externally. Besides, the presentations comes from Stonebreaker himself; of (Turing prize, Von Neumann Medal, ingres, postgres, cstore, vertica, hstore, SciDB, Tamr, Streambase)-fame. [1] http://use-the-index-luke.com/ http://use-the-index-luke.com/ is a very good resource for this.
jasode 10y ago
Yes, that slide deck in isolation looks an ad so it's probably better to get some background on Michael Stonebraker's "big picture" beliefs and core premises: ++ He believes SQL is the "right" and most proven access model. (Note that SQL does not mean RDBMS like Oracle/MSSQL.) ++ He believes in ACID ++ He believes that other db engines' (NoSQL, etc) approaches to gain speed and scaling of clusters by sacrificing SQL and ACID is wrong and his proof is that those other products end up eventually bolting on SQL and ACID anyway. I think a better presentation to flesh out these ideas is the following youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRcecxdGxvQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRcecxdGxvQ It's 55 minutes long so to save time, HN readers may prefer to browse it by pressing "L" key to step through it quickly. Just read the slides shown behind him and if the bullet points look interesting, rewind and listen to his presentation. One can dwell on those SQL/ACID merits in isolation and consider separately, the question of whether VoltDB-as-a-product fulfills those ideals.

This seems suspiciously like a marketing presentation for VoltDB more than debunking myth about SQL. Tl;Dr; SQL is too slow ? No, VoltDB is Fast !

by Kesty 10y ago

This seems suspiciously like a marketing presentation for VoltDB more than debunking myth about SQL. Tl;Dr; SQL is too slow ? No, VoltDB is Fast !

jhugg 10y ago

It was presented in 2010 at gluecon and was the launch deck for VoltDB. A big chuck is marketing, yes. Doesn’t make it wrong as a counterexample. Though in 2016, there are a lot more fast SQL systems and it’s unclear this myth is still as mythical as it was?

mangeletti 10y ago

I agree. This is basically marketing material from VoltDB. I've flagged it, not because it's not interesting (some of it is), but because marketing propaganda can't really be trusted as a source of information.

BenoitP 10y ago
While it is clearly propaganda for VoltDB, it does a good job of adressing some of the myths of SQL-slowness that we don't see very often. Usually a lot of people saying SQL is slow is because they don't really use it well. He doesn't talk about indexing and statistics [1] for example. But he talks about ODBC/JDBC because, while it is usually fast enough, a lot of people overlook the fact that these interfaces hold transactions externally. Besides, the presentations comes from Stonebreaker himself; of (Turing prize, Von Neumann Medal, ingres, postgres, cstore, vertica, hstore, SciDB, Tamr, Streambase)-fame. [1] http://use-the-index-luke.com/ http://use-the-index-luke.com/ is a very good resource for this.

jasode 10y ago

Yes, that slide deck in isolation looks an ad so it's probably better to get some background on Michael Stonebraker's "big picture" beliefs and core premises: ++ He believes SQL is the "right" and most proven access model. (Note that SQL does not mean RDBMS like Oracle/MSSQL.) ++ He believes in ACID ++ He believes that other db engines' (NoSQL, etc) approaches to gain speed and scaling of clusters by sacrificing SQL and ACID is wrong and his proof is that those other products end up eventually bolting on SQL and ACID anyway. I think a better presentation to flesh out these ideas is the following youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRcecxdGxvQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRcecxdGxvQ It's 55 minutes long so to save time, HN readers may prefer to browse it by pressing "L" key to step through it quickly. Just read the slides shown behind him and if the bullet points look interesting, rewind and listen to his presentation. One can dwell on those SQL/ACID merits in isolation and consider separately, the question of whether VoltDB-as-a-product fulfills those ideals.