

Quick Reference to Alternative data storages - alexpopescu
http://themindstorms.blogspot.com/2009/05/quick-reference-to-alternative-data.html
While it may probably not be exhaustive, my intention is to provide a quick reference to BASE systems (Basically Available, Soft State, Eventually consistent, as opposed to ACID: Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, Durability) that would offer newcomers an overview of the existing projects in the field.
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alexpopescu
This is still under work and input from everyone is more than welcome. Please
help me fill in the gaps.

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evgen
First of all, as much as I love Tokyo Tyrant and Tokyo Cabinet I have a hard
time seeing it as an "alternative" data storage system. It is an incremental
improvement over standard hash/b-tree storage libraries like BDB with a
standardized network interface.

I think you are going to find it very difficult to create an accurate
yardstick with which to measure performance of these various datastores. Once
we leave the world of a monolithic RDBM server there are a lot of variables
that come into play. If database X is network-bound when distributed across
multiple hosts and database Y bottlenecks on disk i/o then you are going to
get completely different results for each depending on the hardware and
network layout/infrastructure of each test cluster. Each system probably also
has a large batch of configuration options that can influence the results
depending on how much information about the cluster can be provided to the
storage system. Unless you have a dedicated cluster that you intend on running
the tests on I would remove this section. A potentially better option would be
to just have a table that lists the best-case and worst-case environments for
each system. I would much rather know that system X works best when the
entirety of the DB fits in RAM and the network link is fast than have some
table of psuedo-measurements that do not really provide useful information.

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alexpopescu
This is a great idea! I'm not sure if there is enough info out there to fill
this in, but it's definitely worth trying. I'll update the post with your idea
and see what we get. Thanks.

