I remember encountering a 1+ petabyte database 10 years ago: it was the database to record and analyze particle accelerator experiment data at CERN. And it was built using a commercial object database - not relational. Oh but wait - the relational vendors have told us that OO databases don't scale....
Storing it is one thing. Querying is a very different thing. What happens when somebody wants to find out something not specifically envisioned in the original experiment?
You are right. For ad-hoc access, relational is superior. However, for pre-defined access, OO is superior. In particular, OO is far superior for 99% of all three-tier apps (those that use an app server), because for those kinds of apps the transactions are known ahead of time.
You are mistaken. While certainly almost everything (right or wrong) has been said at some time by someone, nobody respectable who knew what they were doing ever claimed that object-oriented databases would not scale.
In fact OO and similar (CODASYL, network-style, etc. ) databases were used and continue to be used very heavily in applications where relational database do not scale.
I guess I was referring to the current community of developers that only use relational systems, as if they were the only game in town. For example, what percentage of middle-tier apps do you think use relational today? And what percent do you think would be best implemented as OO? In my own opinion, the numbers are probably something like 99% and 99%, respectively.
Only problem is, where do you find an oo database with a good index and search implementation, that don't cost to much that when you ask the company for a price, they don't even want to reply.
Point well taken. The problem now is the reality that OO databases database products were decimated by their failure to explain their value to the market. However, there is a little bit of a resurgence. See http://www.service-architecture.com/products/object-oriented_databases.html [service-architecture.com]
OO databases have done this ten years ago (Score:5, Interesting)
That was ten years ago.
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Storing it is one thing. Querying is a very different thing. What happens when somebody wants to find out something not specifically envisioned in the original experiment?
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In fact OO and similar (CODASYL, network-style, etc. ) databases were used and continue to be used very heavily in applications where relational database do not scale.
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Only problem is, where do you find an oo database with a good index and search implementation, that don't cost to much that when you ask the company for a price, they don't even want to reply.
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