WHAT THE MARKET-LEADING DBMS VENDORS DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW

Disruption is gathering steam

Curt Monash

Analyst since 1981 Covered DBMS since the pre-relational days Also analytics, search, etc.

Own firm since 1987 Publicly available research

Feed at www.monash.com/signup.html Blogs, including www.dbms2.com White papers and more at

www.monash.com

Database diversity

Mike Stonebraker, PhD “One size doesn’t fit all”

Curt Monash, PhD “Horses for courses” “Database diversity”

Mike and Curt The world needs 9 to 11 different kinds of

data management software

Large enterprise DBMS portfolio

Principal OLTP/multipurpose DBMS Principal OLAP DBMS Midrange OLTP/multipurpose DBMS Search Legacy DBMS Other specialty data management

Midrange OTLP/multipurpose DBMS

“Standard editions” Oracle, DB2, SQL*Server, Informix SE Deliberately crippled

VAR-centric Progress OpenEdge, Intersystems Cache’ Accidentally crippled

“Open-source” MySQL, EnterpriseDB

OLTP DBMS worries

Besides the greatest horror – data corruption – concerns include:

License/maintenance cost Performance/scalability Ease of administration Ease of programming Reliability/uptime Security  

Three major kinds of transactions

Traditional business transactions Orders Employment changes Compliance/risk monitoring

Simple events = sensors, logs, etc. Web site clicks Network events Device monitoring Vehicle monitoring RFID

Content serving

Traditional business transactions are

Complex Consistent in the face of complexity Stringently industrial-strength

Real business need Customer expectations Compliance

Issues to consider for applications that record complex transactions

Schema complexity (integrity) Schema variability Peak performance Uptime Security

Issues to consider for applications that record simple events

Performance Uptime What happens to the data next?

Issues to consider for applications that serve content

Which datatypes? Scale The alphanumeric parts

Application metrics

Peak concurrent update throughput Query complexity and volume Transaction (and constraint!) complexity Overall database size (and change!) Uptime requirements Security/compliance requirements Datatype needs

And how will those evolve?

Business model changes

Functional changes

Environmental considerations

Hardware (SMP, blade, toy collection) Middle tier DBMS expertise (and where it sits in the

organization) Database administration tools Development tools Fixed-point applications (and how good is

their generic JDBC/ODBC support?)

And how will THOSE evolve?

Consolidation -- but what does that mean in your shop?

Modularity

Example 1: Compliance/risk monitoring

Many feeder systems One schema per feeder system Accept both relational ETL and XML Output via BI

Key requirements 1

Rigorous security Easy administration Eventual XML support Unknown scalability

Example 2: Contractually-defined products

Complex financial instruments Vacations Warranties

Key requirements 2

Strong native XML Complex constraints Availability Security Volume?

Example 3: Content sharing and selling

Web-facing – video, music, photo, etc. Internal content management

Key requirements 3

Performant media datatype support Performant order entry Performant user tracking and

personalization Spike scalability 24/7 availability

Major areas of OLTP DBMS differentiation

Performance and scaling Administration and 24/7 operation Constraints and referential integrity Triggers and stored procedures Datatype support

Performance and scaling

Baseline, peak, future For which features? How sub-linear?

Administration and uptime

Ongoing functions – backup, security, etc.

Indexes and mandatory maintenance?? Replication, fail-over, etc.

Database constraints

What can be done in theory? Does it perform?

Triggers and stored procedures

Performance Languages Automatic generation Development, debugging, maintenance

Datatype support

What do you need? Performance Datatype extensibility (Where relevant) Quality of search

Today’s main topics

You can and should use multiple DBMS In particular, midrange OLTP DBMS are

appealing Not all midrange OLTP DBMS are

created equal Both application and environmental

considerations are important More info at www.monash.com and

www.dbms2.com