
How NASA Tackles Big Data with MySQL - Tokutek
http://www.tokutek.com/2012/05/swri-chooses-tokudb-to-tackle-machine-data-for-an-800m-record-database/#.T7PSzWQahM8.hackernews
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Joyfield
I wish i could afford TokuDB...

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Tokutek
What is your performance and/or scaling issue and what alternatives are you
considering?

In this particular case the scaling needs and performance issues made TokuDB
an economical decision. As the researcher noted in the piece: "With InnoDB
[the default MySQL storage engine], going to larger servers, adding 100s of
GBs of additional RAM along with many additional drives would have easily cost
$20,000 or more, and still would not have addressed all our needs. TokuDB was
by far both a cheaper and simpler solution.”

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saurik
The alternative people normally have in mind when they make comments like "I
wish I could afford X" is not "I guess I'll still do whatever it was X would
have helped me with, but at much larger pain and cost" but "I guess I won't be
able to do the thing X would have helped with at all".

There are many people who have interesting data-related ideas and problems
(maybe for companies, maybe for research, or maybe just for fun) who are not
going to be able to afford (as the company wouldn't be profitable enough, the
research not grant-worthy enough, or with sufficiently little disposable
income to play with) large servers with 100s of GB's of additional RAM.

So, one might imagine this same person, were he to have just read an article
about a company that successfully managed to scale MySQL by buying the worlds
largest computer to run it on from a company specializing in building them--
let's call it the supremum-computer--would have made a very similar comment in
that context: "I wish I could afford a supremum-computer".

Thereby, I will point out that while it is nice that your solution makes such
tasks cheaper, possibly even by an order of magnitude, for people who are
making enough money to be considering such things, and while I have no qualms
with your business model and wish you a lot of luck, it feels like "rubbing it
in our faces" to point out that if we were seriously embarking down one of
these paths you are saving us money by buying your solution: that doesn't
somehow mean we can afford it.

