Tag: building databases

The Exasperating Topic of Database Indexes

Previous posts on this theme, “Designing a Relational Database – Data Modeling“ and “Let’s Talk About Database Schema“.

Indexes aren’t necessary right? Of course not, they’re just peripherally superficial things that sit like leaches on a database table’s column!

Ok, bad database satire aside, let’s get real. Indexes are extremely useful for a plethora of reasons. They play a crucial role in optimizing the speed of database operations, especially retrieval operations.

Demystifying the Magic Behind Relational Database Indexes

Ever tried finding a specific recipe in a massive cookbook? Imagine if there wasn’t an index! Just as that cookbook index saves you hours of flipping through page after page, a relational database index works wonders by helping the system quickly locate rows within a table without the tedious process of examining each one.

So, How Does This Magic Work?

Continue reading “The Exasperating Topic of Database Indexes” →

Jonathan Ellis talks about Five Lessons in Distributed Databases

Notes on the talk…

  1. If it’s not SQL it’s not a database. Watch, you’ll get to hear why… ha!

Then Jonathan covers the recent history (sort of recent, the last ~20ish years) of the industry and how we’ve gotten to this point in database technology.

  1. It takes 5+ years to build a database.

Also the tens of millions of dollars with that period of time. Both are needed, in droves, time and money.

…more below the video.

  1. The customer is always right.

Even when they’re clearly wrong, they’re largely right.

For number 4 and 5 you’ll have to watch the video. Lot’s good stuff in this video including comparisons of Cosmos, Dynamo DB, Apache Cassandra, DataStax Enterprise, and how these distributed databases work, their performance (3rd Party metrics are shown) and more details!