3 ms·

Pretty sure he means the relations of a normalized model that fail to scale (either due to complexity (too many joins), or size (too much data for a single node

• jeffdavis 12y ago
  Normalization is also a logical concept (and merely a suggestion when it comes to the relational model, not a requirement) orthogonal to physical scalability concerns. Sometimes people use it loosely, assuming a one-to-one correspondence between a relation and a physical file. These are important distinctions, because a misconception here leads to entirely the wrong solution. One thing that does have inherent physical constraints is consistency. That's usually what people mean when they say that the relational model doesn't scale, but it would be much less confusing to just say that. Then there would be no reason to dismiss a relational language when designing scalable systems.
• SEJeff 12y ago
  I was poking fun at people who say SQL doesn't scale when what they really mean and don't realize is that normalized schema doesn't work at large scale. I agree that you pretty much have to shard data and "join at the app level" at sufficient size, but the definition of "big data" changes every day. 10 years ago 1T would be "big data" whereas today, 1P would be "big data". I'm waiting for the time when you can get 1P ssd drives for your laptops :)
  • JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    And they may be based on 'memristor' technology, who's advantage is very low power and 3D physical topology.