3 ms·

Dimensional modeling (I'm a fan of Kimball's approach) mitigates these problems quite well while still offering very flexible ad-hoc reporting. Works great on a

by meritt 14y ago

Dimensional modeling (I'm a fan of Kimball's approach) mitigates these problems quite well while still offering very flexible ad-hoc reporting. Works great on a row-based RDBMS, even better on columnar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensional_modeling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensional_modeling http://www.amazon.com/Data-Warehouse-Toolkit-Complete-Dimensional/dp/0471200247 http://www.amazon.com/Data-Warehouse-Toolkit-Complete-Dimens... Redshift is indeed a solid product but all these comparisons against Hive are surprising, as that's not the right tool in the first place. Infobright, greenplum, aster, vertica, etc are the products which Redshift seeks to disrupt.

jacques_chester 14y ago
I realised a few years ago that pretty much every database course taught only teaches OLTP. OLAP never really gets a lookin. At my university, standard normalisation was taught in the "databases" course. OLAP was mentioned as part of the "advanced databases" course. The database course at that time blew about half its time on building PHP applications to talk to the database. I hate to second guess my professors, but I can't help but feel that a more productive use of the time would have been to teach normalised OLTP in the first half, and dimensionally modelled OLAP in the second half. Better yet, to divide them into two courses and spend some time talking about database history ("here's why network and hierarchical databases sucked") and maybe some introduction to how query planners work.
- eru 14y ago
  Do you know of any resource that talks about the same topic as your comment, but in more detail?
  - jacques_chester 14y ago
    I'm not sure I follow you.
    - eru 14y ago
      To be more stereotypical: I am intrigued and would like to sign up to your newsletter.
      - jacques_chester 14y ago
        Well ... really, just read a good pair of textbooks on each side of the spectrum. Date's Databases and Kimball's The Data Warehouse Toolkit are good. Edit: actually, maybe not Date. It's up to you. It's good, but it's controversial because he's not a fan of SQL and so he uses his own language. The one I used in uni was Ramakrishnan & Gehrke's Database Management. It was OK but there's a certain amount of at-the-time trendy bullshit that to me detracts from a focus on relational databases for their own sake. Edit 2: and Joe Celko's SQL for Smarties contains good oil on the relational paradigm.
  - wisty 14y ago
    Philip Greenspan's SQL tutorial is a nice starting point: http://philip.greenspun.com/sql/ http://philip.greenspun.com/sql/ It's a bit old, but still pretty good.

by meritt 14y ago

jacques_chester 14y ago

I realised a few years ago that pretty much every database course taught only teaches OLTP. OLAP never really gets a lookin. At my university, standard normalisation was taught in the "databases" course. OLAP was mentioned as part of the "advanced databases" course. The database course at that time blew about half its time on building PHP applications to talk to the database. I hate to second guess my professors, but I can't help but feel that a more productive use of the time would have been to teach normalised OLTP in the first half, and dimensionally modelled OLAP in the second half. Better yet, to divide them into two courses and spend some time talking about database history ("here's why network and hierarchical databases sucked") and maybe some introduction to how query planners work.

eru 14y ago
Do you know of any resource that talks about the same topic as your comment, but in more detail?
- jacques_chester 14y ago
  I'm not sure I follow you.
  - eru 14y ago
    To be more stereotypical: I am intrigued and would like to sign up to your newsletter.
    - jacques_chester 14y ago
      Well ... really, just read a good pair of textbooks on each side of the spectrum. Date's Databases and Kimball's The Data Warehouse Toolkit are good. Edit: actually, maybe not Date. It's up to you. It's good, but it's controversial because he's not a fan of SQL and so he uses his own language. The one I used in uni was Ramakrishnan & Gehrke's Database Management. It was OK but there's a certain amount of at-the-time trendy bullshit that to me detracts from a focus on relational databases for their own sake. Edit 2: and Joe Celko's SQL for Smarties contains good oil on the relational paradigm.
- wisty 14y ago
  Philip Greenspan's SQL tutorial is a nice starting point: http://philip.greenspun.com/sql/ http://philip.greenspun.com/sql/ It's a bit old, but still pretty good.