Did you not understand what I wrote, or do you think that "large san" or "fast interconnects limited to machines in the same couple of racks" count as "scaling?"
Ouch - aren't you getting a little bit personal here? I'll try to remain professional, and I'll accept the fact that you're quoting things you didn't say, as the re-write was clearer as to your intention.
When it comes to scaling, there's no rule which says you have to scale in any particular way. Many database customers consider scaling _up_ a form of scaling, and probably 99% of the world's database users will never go beyond what can be achieved on a single machine. They don't care about your pet project, about how the way it works is cooler and technologically purer. They consider databases a tool, and they don't really care how it works. I don't think too deeply about how a can opener works. I'm able to open more cans faster with a more powerful electric can opener. Even scaling up is still scaling.
There are customers with bigger needs. For some of them, SAN based scaling is just what they need; more IOPS let their database keep running and they can get on with their lives. If they need more IOPS, they add more drives to their SAN. Scaling with a SAN is still scaling.
Some customers have more complex demands, and look to Exadata or Netezza. They might start with just a few nodes, and add more nodes as their load increases. It's still scaling.
Now, we in CompSci circles get excited about scaling using clusters. That's _sexy_ scaling. Cassandra and FathomDB can both change the rules of the game, and I'm excited about what FathomDB can do here, just as I can see you're passionate about Cassandra. But let's not pretend that most customers really care about how it scales; they care about what we can do. To customers, if it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it is a duck. But when they're choosing a database, scaling is not the only requirement, and certainly scaling in a certain way is unlikely to be on their list of requirements. If you've ever read an RFP, there's a bewildering number of questions that have nothing to do with technology at all, and often the technology section is a depressingly short list. Although part of the RFP game is to try to get the purchaser to write in requirements that only you can deliver, purchasers are considerably more savvy than that.
You can jump up and down like Rumpelstiltskin arguing that yours is the only database that's _really_ scaling and the Oracle solution didn't meet the requirements, and that they should have chosen you. At the end of the day all you're left with is one person jumping up and down screaming about the rules of the game, and a customer that got what they needed and an Oracle salesperson that earned their commission.
I really don't like how you keep sidestepping the hard questions that were raised.
Instead of curling up in semantics discussions, how about simply answering a few of those? I think you could do that without revealing anything about the magic sauce of your product.
To reiterate:
* Does your system support the full SQL vocabulary, including all join types?
* Is it ACID?
* Do I really not have to arrange my data in any special way (schema-, or partition-wise)?
* Does it really scale near-linear, regardless of the workload that I apply?
* Why do you bother with MySQL-Hosting as a secondary product if your new db scales down just fine?
It might seem to you that we can answer these questions without revealing secrets, but consider that (1) I've not been answering them and (2) you're asking whether we can do what was thought to be impossible, so real answers will necessarily provide direction. Short answers will just annoy you, full answers will reveal too much, and frankly, there's little upside in replying. If you'd make a good early-adopter customer for us, contact us and we can have the discussion. But equally, I see that you haven't replied to my call for early-adopters!
One I can definitely answer: yes, full SQL vocabulary support (though we haven't implemented everything yet!)
Short answers will just annoy you, full answers will reveal too much
Oh well, a simple yes or no would be fine, really.
However, I guess it's safe to assume then, that you're not ACID and that data will have to be rearranged to accomodate your system. That's my take-home because a simple "yes" to either question would not have revealed anything.
Did you not understand what I wrote, or do you think that "large san" or "fast interconnects limited to machines in the same couple of racks" count as "scaling?"