Which database is the best for my situation? - database

I have a simple plan: I have a one application to create records and insert to database (2 - 10 record per second) and 3 or more application (as clients) connect to DBMS server to query (SELECT statements for search and filter results) records rapidly
I don't use these SQL commands: delete, update. My records grows up to 2 billion!
With this specification, can someone suggest which database is best for my situation?
MySQL,
MS-SQL Server,
Oracle,
or any other?

MySQL is free, but actively supported/maintained. I have used it with about 10+ million rows in the main table of our application and it was fine. It also has some funky SQL extensions - you can do stuff with it that's simple and effective that you can't do in other DBs (or it's extremely painful to do).
MS-SQL is IMHO not worth paying for - like most (all?) MS products they start with a "small" mentality (departmental system size) then retrofit concurrency and scalability and wonder why stuff doesn't work.
Oracle is obscenely expensive, but it's easy to get contractor staff to help you (they follow the money) and it's a very mature rock-solid product.
Another option is postgres, which I have used a lot. I really like postgres - it's free, and very solid. There is one caveat - it only recently bundled real-time, failover replication into its offering - something that mysql has had for many years.
I would go MySQL and see what happens.

Our experiences with MySQL were not very nice when dealing with huge number of records. (2 million records is huge) I feel MySQL would not be the best choice with so frequent inserts either.
MS-SQL is better, says my colleagues at work. Then your DBMS server will have to be Windows based. It's your call to decide whether it is a problem or not.
You can not go wrong with Oracle. But it is very expensive.
You should have a seperate database access layer in your application, define an interface for all your database operations. If you use .NET, entity framework will make your life easier. Once you do these, you will be able to experiment with different databases relatively easily. At least in theory.
Just my two cents.
Edit: 2 Billion ??!
If you really need that many records, this is my one line answer: Hire an expert.

Related

Hive vs SQL Server performance

1) I started using hive from last 2 months. I have a same task as that in SQL. I found that Hive is slow and takes more time to execute queries while SQL executes it in very few minutes/seconds.
After executing the task in Hive when I cross check the result in both (SQL and Hive), I found some difference in results (Not all but in some tables).
e.g. : I have one table which has 2012 records, when I executed a task in Hive in the same table in Hive I got 2007 records.
Why it is happening?
2) If I think to speed up my execution in Hive then what should I do for it?
(Currently I am executing all this stuff on single cluster only. If I think to increase the clusters then how many cluster should I need it to increase the performance)
Please suggest me some solution or some good practices so that I can do it keenly.
Thanks.
Hive and SQL Server are not comparable in any way other than the similarity in the syntax of the query language.
While SQL Server is built to be able to respond in realtime from a single machine, hive is for processing large data sets that may span hundreds or thousands of machines.
Hive (via hadoop) has a lot of overhead for starting up a job.
Hive and hadoop will not cache data in memory like sql server does.
Hive has only recent added indexes so most queries end up being a table scan.
If your dataset fits on a single computer you probably want to stick with SQL Server and not hive. Hive performance tuning is mostly based in Hadoop performance tuning although depending on the types of queries you run there can be free performance from using the LazyBinarySerDe.
Hive does have some differences from regular SQL that may be effecting your query. Without more details I can't speculate as to why.
Ignore the "they aren't comparable in any way" comment. If it stores data, it is comparable to any other method of storing data.
But be aware that SQL Server, 13 years ago, had 1000+ people being paid full-time to improve their product. So while that doesn't "Prove" anything, it does increase ones confidence that more work = more results.
More importantly, look for any non-trivial benchmark done on an open source and/or non-relational method of storing data vs one of the mainstream relational databases. You won't find them. That says a lot to me. (Also, mainstream isn't necessary since the current world's fastest data engine isn't even mainstream. But if that level is needed, look at ExoSol.)
If your need is to learn to work with technology at your job and that technology is Hive, my recommendation is to find someone who is really focused on getting the most out of Hive query performance as possible. If there is a Hive query guru out there, find them. But if you need a lot more than what they can give you, you're using the wrong technology.
And if Hive isn't a requirement, I would avoid it and other technologies lacking the compelling business model that will guarantee their survival past 5 years and move them out of niche category they currently exist in (currently 20 times less popular than any mainstream data engine - https://db-engines.com/en/ranking).

Best database for multi million row store/query

We have a database that has been growing for around 5 years. The main table has near 100 columns and 700 million rows (and growing).
The common use case is to count how many rows match a given criteria, that is:
select count(*) where column1='TypeA' and column2='BlockC'.
The other use case is to retrieve the rows that match a criteria.
The queries started by taking a bit of time, now they take a couple of minutes.
I want to find some DBMS that allows me to make the two use cases as fast as possible.
I've been looking into some Column store databases and Apache Cassandra but still have no idea what is the best option. Any ideas?
Update: these days I'd recommend Hive 3 or PrestoDB for big data analysis
I am going to assume this is an analytic (historical) database with no current data. If not, you should consider separating your dbs.
You are going to want a few features to help speed up analysis:
Materialized views. This is essentially pre-calculating values, and then storing the results for later analysis. MySQL and Postgres (coming soon in Postgres 9.3) do not support this, but you can mimic with triggers.
easy OLAP analysis. You could use Mondrian OLAP server (java), but then Excel doesn't talk to it easily, but JasperSoft and Pentaho do.
you might want to change the schema for easier OLAP analysis, ie the star schema. Good book:
http://www.amazon.com/Data-Warehouse-Toolkit-Complete-Dimensional/dp/0471200247/ref=pd_sim_b_1
If you want open source, I'd go Postgres (doesn't choke on big queries like mysql can), plus Mondrian, plus Pentaho.
If not open source, then best bang for buck is likely Microsoft SQL Server with Analysis Services.

What database to use for big data storage and manipulation?

I have to make a decision of which database server to use for my next project, but the simple decision to use MySQL like almost all the projects I did is harder now, because I expect very much records.
The database will store a user list, some other irrelevant tables, and the last one, some user-collected data. Let's say, if I have 6000 users responding to a quiz about each other. Simple math shows that from those users, if each one completes the quiz about everyone (and in my project that is 99% sure that will happen) I'll end up with 35.99million records(they will exclude themselves and in this particular situation the operation is 6000*5999). Unfortunately 6000 maybe is a small number, the real one growing day by day.
What to choose? MySQL and maybe if things go well and the project grows to expand it in a cluster? PostgreSQL, MSSQL? Oracle?
I've read about all of them, each one has it's pros and cons, but still don't know what to choose. The advantage of MySQL and PostgreSQL is of course, the starting price of $0 which is pretty nice in a usual self-funded startup.
Any opinions, pieces of advice? If you encountered this situation in your experience as developers, I'd love to hear from you.
These days, free isn't something that differenciates between databases any more. Both Oracle and SQL Server have free versions, but the limitations is resources - 4 GB database, RAM & single CPU utilization. Millions of records is not a concern - it's what datatypes you're using.
I saw the OPs comment about not liking MS software - that's your prerogative, but using the free versions of either Oracle or SQL Server do benefit from seamless transition to upscale versions of the respective database.
Personally, my choice would be either Oracle or SQL Server because of IMHO, real feature considerations like hierarchical query support, subquery factoring/CTE, packages (long before I get concerned with functions/procedures), full text searching, xml support, etc.
MySQL will handle 35 million records no problem. Worry about scalability when you get there. You can easily add raid hard disks backing your database tables, and if you really start getting big you can get a compellant SAN that will scream... Don't worry about the DB engine as much as the underlying hardware.. MySQL rocks for us with millions of records.
I've had no problems handling tables as large as 36,000,000 rows on MySQL and Oracle.
Just be sure that you index the proper columns, run EXPLAINs for your queries, and maintain proper design principles.
Most of the truly large scale web properties use a distributed key-value store. That said, 35 million is large, but not that large. With most modern databases, your main two scaling worries should be throughput and what happens when no single box can contain your entire database anymore. And both of these problems can be solved to some degree for any database you choose to use. (Caching, replication, sharding, etc.)
Use MySQL until you can't anymore. At that point, you ought to be rolling in dough anyways and you now have a very desirable problem.
Use MySQL as it's free and you have experience with it.
Besides in my opinion it matters more on how you design the tables than which database you use.
35 million records can be easily handled by MS SQL Server (assuming proper database design, indices, etc.). You can start with the free SQL Server Express edition and later, if you need, you can upgrade to the full version which supports clustering, etc.
SQL Server Express does have some limitations - single CPU, 1 GB memory, max 4 GB database size and a few other things. I'm not sure how quickly these limitations will become a problem but you can always move to the full version when you run into them.
MySQL(i) & Postgre
0$ of costs
large community
many tutorials
well documentated
MSSQL
You can get "money" from MS if you promote that you are using MSSQL (secret information from some companies I worked for)
MS tools work very well
Complete tool set from C# IDE over .NET lib to Windows Server 2003
Oracle
Professional and commercial provider
Used by many large companies (I also heard about Blizzard (World of Warcraft) using Oracle)
- expensive
The final decision depends on the very special requirements of your project.
Make yourself a quick list of things , that ARE IMPORTANT for your project (e.g. quick performed queries) and look up which Database pros are matching the most to your requirements.
Everything is about design. SQL Database are some kind of cars, you just have to know which component has to be placed here and which there.
Make a clear design and you won't struggle with any of them.
May be you can test Firebird
Blog post about big Firebird database here
MySQL licence is here (not allways free).
Postgresql and Firebird are free.
First of all, don't think about performance. Premature optimization being the root of all evil and all that. You can always throw more hardware and/or tuning at it later.
All of the mentioned should perform nicely if tuned/maintained correctly. I'd focus on manageability and familiarity. IMHO open source databases excels on manageability (perhaps not the best GUIs, but the CLI has been my home for a long long time).
And if the database becomes the bottleneck, why limit yourself to those choices? How about a key-value distributed database? Or perhaps serialize data directly to disk? Storing data outside of a RDBMS, while often frowned upon, might be the correct path. Or simply use the common route of denormalization.
Always remember not to optimize prematurely.
As far as opinions go (since you specifically asked for it) I favor open source databases, specifically PostgreSQL. It's rock solid, fast and very well-featured. And even with (relatively) large datasets it has performed superbly on mediocre hardware (some tuning involved, of course, but you can't skip that step no matter which db you end up choosing).

Can SQL server 2008 handle 300 transactions a second?

In my current project, the DB is SQL 2005 and the load is around 35 transactions/second. The client is expecting more business and are planning for 300 transactions/second. Currently even with good infrastructure, DB is having performance issues. A typical transaction will have at least one update/insert and a couple of selects.
Have you guys worked on any systems that handled more than 300 txn/s running on SQL 2005 or 2008, if so what kind of infrastructure did you use how complex were the transactions? Please share your experience. Someone has already suggested using Teradata and I want to know if this is really needed or not. Not my job exactly, but curious about how much SQL can handle.
Its impossible to tell without performance testing - it depends too much on your environment (the data in your tables, your hardware, the queries being run).
According to tcp.org its possible for SQL Server 2005 to get 1,379 transactions per second. Here is a link to a system that's done it. (There are SQL Server based systems on that site that have far more transactions... the one I linked was just the first I one I looked at).
Of course, as Kragen mentioned, whether you can achieve these results is impossible for anyone here to say.
Infrastructure needs for high performance SQL Servers may be very differnt than your current structure.
But if you are currently having issues, it is very possible the main part of your problem is in bad database design and bad query design. There are many way to write poorly performing queries. In a high transaction system, you can't afford any of them. No select *, no cursors, no correlated subqueries, no badly performing functions, no where clauses that aren't sargeable and on and on.
The very first thing I'd suggest is to get yourself several books on SQl Server peroformance tuning and read them. Then you will know where your system problems are likely to be and how to actually determine that.
An interesting article:
http://sqlblog.com/blogs/paul_nielsen/archive/2007/12/12/10-lessons-from-35k-tps.aspx

RDBMS data-relation burden

Our in-house system is built on SQL Server 2008 with a 40-table 6NF schema. Most of the tables FK to 3 others, a key few as many as 7. The system will ultimately support 100s of employees working with 10s of 1000s of customers and store 100s of 1000s of transactional records -- prime-time access should peak at 1000 rows per second.
Is there any reason to think that this depth of RDBMS inter-relation would overburden a system built using modern hardware with ample RAM? I'm attempting to evaluate whether we need to adjust our design or project direction/goals before we approach the final development phase (in a couple of months).
In SQl Server terms what you describe is a smallish database. With correct design SQL Server can handle terrabytes of data.
This is not to guarantee that your current design may perform well. There are many ways to construct poorly performing t-SQL and many bad database design choices.
If I were you I would load test data to twice the size you expect the tables to have and then start testing your code. Load testing might also be a good idea. It is far easier to fix database performance problems before they go to production. Far, far easier!

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