

Ask YC: how is SimpleDB? - jdavid

I am wondering how simpleDB compares to making S3 calls or a MySQL call on a separate EC2 instance.
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ptm
I tried using simpleDB for a while, and would not recommend it for production
use.

No joins - SimpleDB was designed for parallel operations - so if you need data
from multiple tables, you need to fire multiple queries (in parallel
preferably).

No retrieval of multiple attributes - You cannot retrieve attributes from
multiple items. So if you need to retrieve 10 items, you'll have to first fire
the condition query to get the item-ids and then 10 queries for each item. If
you're using serial access, this could be painful.

UTF-8 issues with the REST interface - Minor annoyance. It works with the SOAP
interface though.

1024 byte limit for each attribute - This could sometimes be an problem,
especially if you're using UTF-8 data (with the REST interface issue)

If you're ready to code for parallel access, no UTF-8 (while using REST), and
don't mind the 1024 byte limit then you could give it a try.

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sadiq
I wonder if there's potential for offering some kind of SQL engine that sits
atop SimpleDB. In the same way that MySQL used to sit atop of BerkeleyDB.

Could even run the engine on EC2.

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andyjenn
...or a MySQL engine on top of S3?

<http://fallenpegasus.com/code/mysql-awss3/>

~~~
sadiq
I was thinking of an actual business idea.

Providing some kind of higher level abstraction in a pay-as-you-go
utilisation, hosted on ec2 and maybe backed on to simpledb.

You'd really want to throw memcache in there as well. I wonder how easy
porting that to memcache and simpledb would be?

~~~
jdavid
the problem with simple ideas for aws, is that you need to either pay via
data, bandwidth or instance hours.

i would love to pay for process hours on some software. i wish there was
standard way for aws customers to exchange services based on process time.

in all likelihood amazon has done some of this work for simpleDB, but it would
be great to build a piece of code on one linux box and then to sell that time
to other users.

i could think of a number of situations where I would love to pay for process
time instead of instance time. email, databases, caches, load balancing,
etc...

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jsjenkins168
I am really disappointed that Amazon has not yet extended more invitations
into SimpleDB closed beta or opened it up yet. I'm interested in utilizing it
for my startup but I guess I'll just have to wait..

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madmotive
Make sure you are signed up with payment details for S3 or EC2 and you should
get an invitation very quickly.

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DarrenStuart
yeah I got it fairly quickly because I am using the other services.

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jdavid
"payment details"

i am a paying customer of s3 and ec2. are you suggesting i should have a
simpleDB account?

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bprater
Make sure you follow the rules for getting into the Beta program. I got in
very quickly.

