7 ms·
Okay, see... here's more of the no-SQL agenda at hacker news. This isn't a question of "Does SQL Scale or not?" but "How much do SQL Databases Scale?" I feel
by pj 17y ago
Okay, see... here's more of the no-SQL agenda at hacker news. This isn't a question of "Does SQL Scale or not?" but "How much do SQL Databases Scale?"
I feel like the propaganda here is that because RDBMS doesn't scale to youtube or google scale they suck and that's not true. Like SQL is a waste of time because at some point, you're going to need to shard your database.
Look, at that kind of scale, you're going to have problems with any solution to any problem. Handling that kind of scale is going to be expensive no matter what solution you implement, whether it's map/reduce or flat files or some other solution.
But deciding to build a system from the beginning on something non-relational because someday you may have to accommodate that kind of scale is an example of premature optimization. The vast majority of features you get with SQL are going to outweigh the limitations of noSQL.
I've worked on some pretty high scale systems built on SQL and yes, there are problems, but there's just something irrational going on here and it's off-putting. It's like we are throwing out the baby with the bath water or something.
- qhoxie 17y agoLook, at that kind of scale, you're going to have problems with any solution to any problem. Handling that kind of scale is going to be expensive no matter what solution you implement, whether it's map/reduce or flat files or some other solution. It is not a point of whether or not it is expensive. Scaling (nearly) always has expense associated with it. The issue is how much expense, and with some applications it is significantly less with one of the "no-SQL" solutions. But deciding to build a system from the beginning on something non-relational because someday you may have to accommodate that kind of scale is an example of premature optimization. The vast majority of features you get with SQL are going to outweigh the limitations of noSQL. You are making it sound as though a relational database is the correct choice barring any scaling. Perhaps you have not yet thoroughly evaluated some of the alternatives out there, because in many applications, there would be no step back from *SQL.
- gaius 17y agoAs others have pointed out, the "no SQL" crowd are invariably MySQL users who have run into the limitations of MySQL but for ideological reasons can't state that the problems they encounter are specific to MySQL. DB2, Teradata and Oracle users regularly tackle problems 100x larger than MySQL can handle.
- jmtulloss 17y ago[citation needed]
- gaius 17y agoOK, try this: http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2003/PR20.03EOracle.html http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2003/PR...
- jmtulloss 17y agoA press release isn't data. I'd be interested in seeing the comparative results of the trials CERN put Oracle through. It's not that I don't believe that Oracle can scale better than MySQL, it's just that I haven't seen any convincing data that it can scale so much better that it's worth the cost. I'm no expert, so maybe the data exists. I just haven't seen it.
- trezor 17y agoAgreed. I also fund it hard to sympathize with these startups having ambitions to scale to Google-like sizes, yet are unwilling to pony up cash for a proper database system like Oracle or SQL Server. Seeing the amount of ugly hacks people are willing to come up with and employ and features they are willing to cut, just to handle trivial loads, kinda makes me think that MySQL can only be considered free if your time is worthless.