Robert Bernier wrote:
>Two links here, comments anybody?
>
>http://www.computerworlduk.com/technology/applications/databases/news/index.cfm?newsid=5059
>
>http://www.databasecolumn.com/
>
>Robert
>
>
>
OK, I'm being stupid here- can someone please explain to me the
difference between a column-oriented database and a fully normalized
row-oriented database? Most databases are insufficiently normalized,
this I know (including mine). And this causes pain. But it seems to me
that full normalized (aka column-oriented) databases also cause pain,
just a different type of pain. Collecting rows I'm very likely to all
want together onto the same page strikes me as being a signifigant
performance advantage. Having to read in a page for every column- or
worse yet, O(log N) pages for each column (as I have to traverse an
index)- strikes me as being a huge performance hit.
But maybe I'm not seeing something, and someone can enlighten me.
Brian
