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I guess so will the likes of Facebook, Google, Twitter, eBay etc. Must be amazing to know more about databases than all of the world's biggest companies put to

I guess so will the likes of Facebook, Google, Twitter, eBay etc. Must be amazing to know more about databases than all of the world's biggest companies put together.

gaius 14y ago
Why? The guys at FB or Google are just guys like you and me, don't believe the hype, they are not superheroes or gurus despite their much talked about interview process (the Google interviews I did were a walk in the park compared to GS, btw). Some will know more than me sure, but some'll know less.
- taligent 14y ago
  Those were only a few examples. I can keep listing companies that use sharding. The idea that it is some 1980's approach to scaling databases is laughable.
  - PommeDeTerre 14y ago
    You're right, it isn't a 1980s approach. I recall hearing about it in the mid 1970s, and even then it was probably originally devised in the 1960s.
- jeremyjh 14y ago
  Just guys like you or me except they build systems with billions of page views a month.
  - gaius 14y ago
    At my last job, we averaged 60k pages/sec, on what the NoSQL guys would call a "legacy" database, and there was plenty of headroom. It's not rocket science, just engineering. Companies like Google love to weave a mystique around what they do, it's in their interests after all, to convince their investors that what they do is magic. But I'm from back in the day when we were the same way about millions of pages per month, then per week, then per day...
    - deleted 14y ago
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    - deleted 14y ago
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    - einhverfr 14y ago
      On good hardware there were PostgreSQL instances running a billion queries a day back in the 9.0 days. Often these are actual accounting apps where reporting matters and so NoSQL would be a very poor fit. For example the French government uses it to distribute welfare program dispersements. The Wisconsin Courts also uses PostgreSQL at loads in the billion per day range. I know there are larger instances out there. Now a days we are talking about thousands of concurrent users and up to 350k reads/sec on high end machines.
      - gaius 14y ago
        Yes there is a lurking iceberg of things that aren't in the public eye like Facebook or Google, and that's where the really intense and interesting stuff is happening. I wonder what the guys at Visa make of all the hype around these websites, when they were doing these volumes all along... At said 60k pages/sec job, you know who we looked up to for databases? Starbucks. Walmart. McDonalds. 'Cos we'd seen what they do, and anyone who thinks Twitter is impressive, well it'd blow their minds.
        einhverfr 14y ago
        Have you looked at Postgres-XC yet? It's Teradata-style clustering for PostgreSQL.....

I guess so will the likes of Facebook, Google, Twitter, eBay etc. Must be amazing to know more about databases than all of the world's biggest companies put together.

gaius 14y ago

Why? The guys at FB or Google are just guys like you and me, don't believe the hype, they are not superheroes or gurus despite their much talked about interview process (the Google interviews I did were a walk in the park compared to GS, btw). Some will know more than me sure, but some'll know less.

taligent 14y ago
Those were only a few examples. I can keep listing companies that use sharding. The idea that it is some 1980's approach to scaling databases is laughable.
- PommeDeTerre 14y ago
  You're right, it isn't a 1980s approach. I recall hearing about it in the mid 1970s, and even then it was probably originally devised in the 1960s.
jeremyjh 14y ago
Just guys like you or me except they build systems with billions of page views a month.
- gaius 14y ago
  At my last job, we averaged 60k pages/sec, on what the NoSQL guys would call a "legacy" database, and there was plenty of headroom. It's not rocket science, just engineering. Companies like Google love to weave a mystique around what they do, it's in their interests after all, to convince their investors that what they do is magic. But I'm from back in the day when we were the same way about millions of pages per month, then per week, then per day...
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - einhverfr 14y ago
    On good hardware there were PostgreSQL instances running a billion queries a day back in the 9.0 days. Often these are actual accounting apps where reporting matters and so NoSQL would be a very poor fit. For example the French government uses it to distribute welfare program dispersements. The Wisconsin Courts also uses PostgreSQL at loads in the billion per day range. I know there are larger instances out there. Now a days we are talking about thousands of concurrent users and up to 350k reads/sec on high end machines.
    - gaius 14y ago
      Yes there is a lurking iceberg of things that aren't in the public eye like Facebook or Google, and that's where the really intense and interesting stuff is happening. I wonder what the guys at Visa make of all the hype around these websites, when they were doing these volumes all along... At said 60k pages/sec job, you know who we looked up to for databases? Starbucks. Walmart. McDonalds. 'Cos we'd seen what they do, and anyone who thinks Twitter is impressive, well it'd blow their minds.
      - einhverfr 14y ago
        Have you looked at Postgres-XC yet? It's Teradata-style clustering for PostgreSQL.....