Message-ID: <4FE899CE.60901@optionshouse.com>
Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2012 12:03:10 -0500
From: Shaun Thomas <sthomas@optionshouse.com>
Reply-To: <sthomas@optionshouse.com>
Organization: Peak6
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To: Craig James <cjames@emolecules.com>
CC: <pgsql-performance@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: MemSQL the "world's fastest database"?
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On 06/25/2012 11:25 AM, Craig James wrote:

> Any thoughts about this? It seems to be a new database system designed
> from scratch to take advantage of the growth in RAM size (data sets that
> fit in memory) and the availability of SSD drives. It claims to be "the
> world's fastest database."

I personally don't put a lot of stock into this. You can get 90k+ TPS 
from an old PostgreSQL 8.2 install if it's all in memory. High 
transactional output itself isn't substantially difficult to achieve.

I'm also not entirely certain how this is different from something like 
VoltDB, which also acts as an in-memory database with high TPS throughput.

Then there's this from the article:

"The key ideas are that SQL code is translated into C++, so avoiding the 
need to use a slow SQL interpreter, and that the data is kept in memory, 
with disk read/writes taking place in the background."

Besides the nonsense statement that SQL is translated to C++ (Lexical 
scanners would circumvent even this step, and does that mean you have to 
literally compile the resulting C++? Ridiculous.) This violates at least 
the 'D' tenet of ACID. Fine for transient Facebook data, but not going 
anywhere near our systems.

-- 
Shaun Thomas
OptionsHouse | 141 W. Jackson Blvd. | Suite 500 | Chicago IL, 60604
312-444-8534
sthomas@optionshouse.com

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