Oracle Beware — Google Tests Cloud-Based Database 123
narramissic writes "On Tuesday, the same day Google held a press event to launch its Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook, the company quietly announced in its research team blog a new online database called Fusion Tables. Under the hood of Fusion Tables is data-spaces technology, which would 'allow Google to add to the conventional two-dimensional database tables a third coordinate with elements like product reviews, blog posts, Twitter messages and the like, as well as a fourth dimension of real-time updates,' according to Stephen E. Arnold, a technology and financial analyst. 'So now we have an n-cube, a four-dimensional space, and in that space we can now do new kinds of queries which create new kinds of products and new market opportunities,' said Arnold, whose research about this topic includes a study done for IDC last August. 'If you're IBM, Microsoft and Oracle, your worst nightmare is now visible.'"
Um... what? (Score:5, Insightful)
How's this three dimensional stuff not just plain old OLAP [wikipedia.org]?
Dimensional nonsense? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't get it. Relational databases are deficient, because they need twitter posts and the FOURTH DIMENSION of being able to update and insert data?
Proprietary data? (Score:5, Insightful)
What company in their right mind is going to upload the crown jewels into someone else's computer?
Re:Dimensional nonsense? (Score:2, Insightful)
Clearly someone has no clue of the word dimension and relational databases. Just because a table can be printed on paper doesn't make it two dimensional.
In relational databases a table is a set of tuples. A tuple is a finite sequence of elements. An n-tuple has n elements and is itsself an element in a n-dimensional space.
That fourth dimension nonsense is what you get if you don't have a basic education of relational databases and relational algebra. But thats just the old stuff of the '70s that is way outdated, right?
Somebody is a bit prone to hyperbole (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a funny feeling Oracle, DB2, and MS SQL executives aren't exactly quivering in abject terror at the idea of a database with "a third coordinate with elements like product reviews, blog posts, Twitter messages and the like."
"Real time updates" are a new feature (and a "fourth dimension")? That's news to me... I thought batch-only updates went out with punchcards.
I'm pretty sure this Google thing has some interesting features, but I am equally sure that it has nothing to do with the buzzword-stuff from that marketing drone/"IT Consultant."
SirWired
Re:red? (Score:2, Insightful)
Red implifies that the google software is now on the verge of becoming self-aware and we should be getting very afraid.
Apparently this new database was the final drop. When it gets out of beta the world as we know it will seize to exist.
Have a nice day.
Re:Merged? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's just what the market calls it for short. The full name is MicrOracleBM Java System Z Office DB2i AS Windows Enterprise Edition.
Or as I like to call it, MOBMJSZODBASWEE. Rolls right off the tongue.