What..the end of the RDBMS?

Can’t give opinion on this now, just check it out…sourced from this link

The End of a DBMS Era (Might be Upon Us)

Michael Stonebraker

June 30, 2009

Relational database management systems (DBMSs) have been remarkably successful in capturing the DBMS marketplace. To a first approximation they are “the only game in town,” and the major vendors (IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft) enjoy an overwhelming market share. They are selling “one size fits all”; i.e., a single relational engine appropriate for all DBMS needs. Moreover, the code line from all of the major vendors is quite elderly, in all cases dating from the 1980s. Hence, the major vendors sell software that is a quarter century old, and has been extended and morphed to meet today’s needs. In my opinion, these legacy systems are at the end of their useful life. They deserve to be sent to the “home for tired software.”

Here’s why.

If we examine the nontrivial-sized DBMS markets, it turns out that current relational DBMSs can be beaten by approximately a factor of 50 in most any market I can think of. What follows are a few examples.

In the data warehouse market, a column store beats a row store by approximately a factor of 50 on typical business intelligence queries. The reason is because column stores read only the columns of interest to the query and not all of them. In addition, compression is more effective in a column store. Since the legacy systems are all row stores, they are vulnerable to competition from the newer column stores. The interested reader can start with “C-Store: A Column-oriented DBMS” to explore this topic further.

In the online transaction processing (OLTP) market, a lightweight main memory DBMS beats a row store by a factor of 50. Leveraging main memory and the fact that no DBMS application will send a message to a human user in the middle of a transaction, allows an OLTP DBMS to run transactions to completion with no resource contention or locking overhead. The interested reader can start with “The End of an Architectural Era (It’s Time for a Complete Rewrite)” to explore this topic further.

In the science DBMS market, users have never liked relational DBMSs and want a non-relational model and query facility. This was the topic of my last ACM blog, “DBMSs for Science Applications: A Possible Solution.”

If you are storing Resource Description Framework (RDF) data, which is popular in the bio community and elsewhere, then “Scalable Semantic Web Data Management Using Vertical Partitioning” points out that column stores are very good at certain RDF workloads. In addition, other ideas, such as “RDF-3X: A Risc-style engine for RDF,” will beat conventional DBMSs in other situations. Lastly, native RDF engines (e.g., Virtuoso, Sesame, and Jena) may well gain traction. The point is that something else will beat conventional row stores in this market.

Text applications have never used relational DBMSs. This was pointed out to me most clearly by Eric Brewer nearly 15 years ago in the early days of Inktomi. He wanted to use a relational DBMS to store the results of Web crawling, but found RDBMS to be two orders of magnitude slower than a home-brew system. All the major Web-search engines use home-brew text software to serve us search results. None use relational DBMSs.

Even in XML, where the current major vendors have spent a great deal of energy extending their engines, it is claimed that specialized engines, such as Mark Logic or Tamino, run circles around the major vendors, according to a private communication by Dave Kellogg.

In summary, one can leverage at least the following ideas to get superior performance:

A non-relational data model. If the user’s data is naturally something other than tables and if simulating his natural data model on top of tables is awkward, then chances are that a native implementation of the natural data model will significantly outperform a conventional RDBMS. This is certainly true in scientific data.

A different implementation of tables. If something other than a row store accelerates the user’s queries, then a direct implementation of the relational model using non-row store technology will run circles around a conventional RDBMS. This is true in the data warehouse marketplace.

A different implementation of transactions. Current row stores give you a “one size fits all” implementation of transactions. This can be radically beaten if a user has lesser requirements or if the system can take advantage of workload specific features. This is true in the OLTP marketplace.

One of these characteristics is true in every market I can think of. Hence, in my opinion, the days of a “one size fits all” monolithic DBMS are at an end. The replacement will be a collection of vertical market specific engines, with much higher performance.

You might ask, “What if I don’t care about performance?” The answer: Run one of the open source relational DBMSs. They are mature, reliable, and, best of all, they are free.

You might also ask, “I am dug in deep with my current vendor(s). What do I do?” The answer: Take some portion of your DBMS budget and allocate it to new solutions. Over time, you will move onto better technology.

References

Michael Stonebraker et al., “C-Store: A Column-oriented DBMS,” Proc 2005 VLDB Conference, Trondheim, Norway, Sept. 2005.

Michael Stonebraker et al., “The End of an Architectural Era (It’s Time for a Complete Rewrite)” Proc 2007 VLDB Conference, Vienna, Austria, Sept. 2007.

Dan Abadi et al., “Scalable Semantic Web Data Management Using Vertical Partitioning,” Proc. 2007 VLDB Conference, Vienna, Austria, Sept. 2007.

Thomas Neumann et al., “RDF-3X: A Risc-style engine for RDF,” Proc VLDB Endowment, 1(1): 647-659 (2008)

 

COBIT and COSO

Here is an extract of one of my academic papers. Originally written in Indonesia. This paper was originally explored with my colleagues Deni, Ina, and Darwin and subsequently refined by me. I guess it’s a good idea to be able to discuss control in accounting information system context. Let me know if you would like to invite me into a constructive discussion since I find the paper still needs refinement in many dimension.

 

Latest on President Election

Such a relieve with the result of Indonesia Presidential election. Virtually, nothing bad happen to the counting process. A comment need to be pointed out. I recall in one TV show presenting an long, biting argumentation between Indonesia Survey Institute (LSI) and Indonesia Research Institute (LRI). Central point of the debate talked over whether 2009 presidential election would end in roundoff. I remembered LRI’s Johan Silalahi even proclaimed that LRI dared to dissolve. Well, I wonder what Johan would do now, after the current votes counting

 

Barca moment

My greatest salute to Barca. They showed the most amazing and flowing soccer before finally won the match over MU for 2-0. All players looked so consistent to their position as opposed to MU clueless and stucked players. Ronaldo was effectively stopped from his space. I vote for Carlos Puyol as the man of the match and predict Messi will be the next FIFA player of the 2009.
Still my heart is for MU and deeply wish next season will be theirs. I hope Christiano Ronaldo will be more mature on his performance and his attitude, Carlos Tevez will stay on the Old Traford and Sir Alex Ferguson still be the manager for the club.
Glory glory Barca….and the best for MU

 

Where are my friends

I started loving playing in a band since my junior high school. There my first appearance was playing a dead metal music like Obituary’s, Sepultura, and gradually decreasing in term of the loudness and speed. This hobby is carried until my undergraduate study. But on that time, the music genre is totally different and precisely defined. I used to play speed metal, rock n roll and classic rock where it was really against music mainstream where people loves to hear top 40. Music like megadeth, led zepellin, uriah heep, janis joplin were among music I love.
And now, I’m started to miss that moment again. Now, most people at my age are busy with their job. Only few of them are still playing in a band, and they now turn into an artist. I wish that I can play again, at least for some leisure time in the middle of my time doing the office job. Just a thought.

 

Recommended Novel – Negeri Van Oranje

For the novel lover, I’ve just finished reading this novel (in Indonesia)..pretty much light reading. Anyway, I like the way the authors tell the whole story that makes me feel as if I were there. The story is about friendships of five Indonesian graduates student from various background. They were destined to meet each other in somewhere in Netherland. Since then, the story began.
But don’t expect too much for a very deep message from the book. After all, it’s supposed to be a light reading. Nevertheless, many things you can extract out of this book like friendship, love, and nationalism.
Sorry folks, I’m a bad teller, if you want to, just grab the book in Gramedia (shelved among “Best Seller” stock).

 

Asylum becomes the favorite..

As expected, Indonesia’s 2009 Parliament general election has harvested the side effect… Many of candidates are experiencing mental problems and are needing special treatment in asylum. What can I say? this is the logical consequence for not being able to take the loss. In some part of the country region, I see from news, one unsuccessful candidate is in conflict with his people whom he wish to vote for him. He force the villagers to get out of his land property. Quite unreasonable…I guess series of this psychological effect keep increasing at least until the Presidential election ends.

 

Deepest Condolences for airplane crash…again

A plane crash incident at the beginning of this week, so close to Indonesia general election struck was a horrible going. The 24 crews were all killed when the plane hit a hangar own by Dirgantara Indonesia Corporation (PT DI), a state owned plane manufacturer located at Husein Sastranegara air force base.
This accident certainly leaves us a pain in each people heart. It makes the list of plane crash accident even longer….
From the very bottom of my heart, I express my deepest condolence for the brave souls who were leaving before us. May the be rest in peace.

 

General Election 09

Countdown to the Indonesia president and parliament election is getting closer, less than a month to go. As opposed to the the last general election, recent system offers a different approach. It’s virtually different indeed.
In last election, people votes primarily for political party. Then the most voted parties will determine candidate for people to sit in the parliament and the candidate for president too. In other words, we were like buying cat in the sack, cause our president was not chosen by the people.
I see current election mechanism is very different. Recent representative candidates must now anticipate for extra money, one for campaigning themselves and one for contributing his/her political party. No wonder many health authorities are preparing extra services and spaces related to mental hospitals. With limited hot seat targeted as opposed to huge number of candidates, added with high tension seasoning, there will be high probability that part of these people will enter the services…scarry….

 

28th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling

Read the complete version to website

The International Conference on Conceptual Modeling is a leading international forum for presenting and discussing current research and applications in which the major emphasis is on conceptual modeling. Topics of interest span the entire spectrum of conceptual modeling including research and practice in areas such as theories of concepts and ontologies underlying conceptual modeling, methods and tools for developing and communicating conceptual models, and techniques for transforming conceptual models into effective implementations.

We encourage submissions relating to all aspects of conceptual modeling defined broadly, and particularly encourage work on topics of emerging interest in the research and development communities.

Call for Papers

Scope of the Conference

The International Conference on Conceptual Modeling is a leading international forum for presenting and discussing current research and applications in which the major emphasis is on conceptual modeling. Topics of interest span the entire spectrum of conceptual modeling including research and practice in areas such as theories of concepts and ontologies underlying conceptual modeling, methods and tools for developing and communicating conceptual models, and techniques for transforming conceptual models into effective implementations. We encourage submissions relating to all aspects of conceptual modeling defined broadly, and particularly encourage work on topics of emerging interest in the research and development communities.
Topics of Interest

We solicit submission of original research, as well as experience and vision papers from both researchers and practitioners. We welcome any topic where conceptual modeling is a major theme. Specific examples of topics of interest include, but are not limited to, conceptual modeling as applied to:

* Information Modeling Concepts, including Ontologies;
* Ontological and Conceptual Correctness in Modeling;
* Logical Foundations of Conceptual Modeling;
* Web Information Systems;
* Mobile information systems and pervasive computing;
* Service-Oriented Computing and Enterprise Architecture;
* The Semantic Web;
* Semistructured Data and XML;
* Information and Database Integration;
* Information Retrieval, Organization, Summarization, and Visualization;
* Design Methodologies and their Evaluation;
* Software Engineering and Tools;
* Requirements Engineering;
* Reuse, Patterns, and Object-Oriented Design;
* Reverse Engineering and Reengineering;
* Quality and Metrics;
* Empirical Studies of Conceptual Modeling;
* Conceptual Change and Schema Evolution;
* Maintenance of Information Systems;
* Management of Integrity Constraints;
* Active Concepts in Conceptual Modeling;
* Spatial, Temporal, and Multimedia Aspects in Conceptual Models;
* Metadata, its Interpretation and Usage;
* User Interface Modeling;
* Knowledge Management Systems;
* Groupware and Workflow Management;
* Data warehousing, data mining, and business intelligence;
* E-Learning, E-Business and E-Government; and
* Other Advanced and Cross-Disciplinary Applications.

Submission Guidelines

Since the proceedings will be published by Springer in the LNCS series, authors must submit manuscripts using the LNCS style. See this site for style files and details. The suggested number of pages is 14, and the maximum number of pages is 16. Manuscripts not submitted in the LNCS style or having more than 16 pages will not be reviewed and thus automatically rejected. (The final, camera-ready version must not exceed 14 pages to avoid page charges.) A paper submitted to ER 2009 cannot be under review for any other conference or journal during the time it is being considered for ER 2009.

Submission to ER 2009 will be electronically only. Authors are asked to submit an abstract first, and then to upload the full paper. The online submission system will be available soon.