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SQL Databases Don't Scale

adam.blog.heroku.com

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Re: SQL Databases Don't Scale

#21

Post by Confusion »

So while sharding is a form of horizontal scaling, it fails point #2: it is not transparent to the business logic of the application.

I do not believe this is usually true, for two reasons. One may be nitpicking, but 'where to get the data' is not part of the business logic: it's pure application logic, dependent on your solution of the problem. In that sense, his argument is wrong. The other reason definitely isn't nitpicking: you can solve the problem by adding a layer between your DAO's and the databases, that handles the 'where to get the data' question. So yes, it requires some programming, but it is still transparant to the business logic. It does not require an invasive change in your application and I think he is grossly exagerating this point.

Re: SQL Databases Don't Scale

#22

Post by jmtulloss »

gaius wrote: post #17
pj wrote: post #11

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 ha…

As 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.

[citation needed]

Re: SQL Databases Don't Scale

#23

Post by nettdata »

I've been an Oracle database architect for almost 20 years.

His whole concept of "SQL doesn't scale" is the typical crap I always hear from people that are either not database experts, are using the wrong database technologies, or don't know what they're doing. More than likely a combination of all three.

And just because you can create an object model, and a simplistic data model, does not make you an architect of large, scalable database systems.

I have, over the past 4 years alone, built Oracle-based, fully scalable databases that handle over 25 million users daily.

Go read up on their RAC architecture, and the "shared everything" implementation.

Sure, it's expensive, but it works great.

For instance, if you play sports games from the world's largest video game corporation, all of your online transactions (achievements, etc) go through exactly such a system that I spent a year architecting and implementing.

If you do any online banking in Canada, or with some of the larger banks in the US, that, too, is on my resume.

I find that this type of FUD comes about from people that aren't good at designing and implementing large databases, or can't afford the technology that can pull it off, so they slam the technology rather than accept that they, themselves, are the ones lacking.

Most of them tend to come from the typical LAMP/SlashDot crowd that only have experience with the minor technologies.

Those of us that do it for a living, using the right technologies, seem to have no problems whatsoever scaling SQL.

Just saying.

Re: SQL Databases Don't Scale

#25

Post by nettdata »

TimothyFitz wrote: post #7

RAID doesn't meet his definition of "scalable" because it has a central controller. This whole post could be summed up as "ACID doesn't scale", which has been proven. Consistency, Availability or Partition Tolerance; pick two ( http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.20.1... ). Good introduction to non-ACID databases: http://highscalability.com/drop-acid-and-think-about-data

Oh please.

The mere fact that he's talking "RAID" instead of SAN speaks volumes. (No pun intended). Any storage engineer worth their salt would be rolling their eyes right now.

The doc you linked to was authored in 2002, about the same time that Oracle's RAC was introduced (late 2001). Some of his citations are from the 80's. THE 80'S!

DB technology has come a LONG way in 8 years, and that paper is no longer valid, unless you're talking about some basic, "minor"/open source db technologies.

If you want to say "open source DB technologies have problems scaling", then go right ahead, and I'll agree.

Just don't mind those of us who continue to build large, scalable systems, using the proper DB technologies, that disprove that "sql doesn't scale" generalization.

Re: SQL Databases Don't Scale

#26

Post by trezor »

gaius wrote: post #17
pj wrote: post #11

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 ha…

As 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.

Agreed. 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.

Re: SQL Databases Don't Scale

#27

Post by staunch »

nettdata wrote: post #23

I've been an Oracle database architect for almost 20 years. His whole concept of "SQL doesn't scale" is the typical crap I always hear from people that are either not database experts, are using the wrong database technologies, or don't know what they're doing. More than likely a combination of all three. And just because you can create an object model, and a simplistic data model, does not make you an architect of l…

Yeah, and if Facebook used Oracle instead of MySQL and memcached, they'd be looking at a $50 million/year+ bill no doubt. Those silly kids with their minor technologies should learn to use a real DB. If those 100 million users that login every day only knew...

Re: SQL Databases Don't Scale

#28

Post by 4buot »

staunch wrote: post #27
nettdata wrote: post #23

I've been an Oracle database architect for almost 20 years. His whole concept of "SQL doesn't scale" is the typical crap I always hear from people that are either not database experts, are using the wrong database technologies, or don't know what they're doing. More than likely a combination of all three. And just because you can create an object model, and a simplistic data model, does not make you an architect of l…

Yeah, and if Facebook used Oracle instead of MySQL and memcached, they'd be looking at a $50 million/year+ bill no doubt. Those silly kids with their minor technologies should learn to use a real DB. If those 100 million users that login every day only knew...

For what its worth, Facebook does have a big Oracle install.

I find it strange that everyone trotted out their preformed opinion for this piece, but no one comments on the cassandra article which actually proposes a solution...although it requires you to learn something, how horrible.

Re: SQL Databases Don't Scale

#29

Post by blasdel »

nettdata wrote: post #23

I've been an Oracle database architect for almost 20 years. His whole concept of "SQL doesn't scale" is the typical crap I always hear from people that are either not database experts, are using the wrong database technologies, or don't know what they're doing. More than likely a combination of all three. And just because you can create an object model, and a simplistic data model, does not make you an architect of l…

You totally ignore the background of the author -- his company Heroku : Ruby/Rack :: Google AppEngine : Python/WSGI

But there's a huge problem -- AppEngine succeeds at seamless multi-tenant truly-distributed clustered hosting thanks to BigTable. Heroku needs to support standard Rails apps, so Postgres is the best they can do, and it's a huge hole in their offering.

You just can't make Postgres (or Oracle) scale on an ideal horizontal the same way you can distribute IP, DNS, HTTP proxying, HTTP serving, memcache, message queues, or bigtable. You can't expose Postgres as an ideal service that just keeps up with what you throw at it.

Re: SQL Databases Don't Scale

#30

Post by jhammerb »

4buot wrote: post #28
staunch wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and if Facebook used Oracle instead of MySQL and memcached, they'd be looking at a $50 million/year+ bill no doubt. Those silly kids with their minor technologies should learn to use a real DB. If those 100 million users that login every day only knew...

For what its worth, Facebook does have a big Oracle install. I find it strange that everyone trotted out their preformed opinion for this piece, but no one comments on the cassandra article which actually proposes a solution...although it requires you to learn something, how horrible.

are you sure facebook has a big oracle install? how do they use it?
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