The AccessScience article was a great learning tool about data bases. I will admit that previously I did not know much about databases in general. This article broke down the subject into fairly easy subsections to make it a little easier to understand. The article broke down databases into components like: hardware, software, data, users and procedural components (administrators). It also talked about the size and quantity if data that can be stored in databases. This number is amazing. In the future, exabytes (10^18 bytes) are expected to be available. Other topics like models and classifications are also discussed in this article.
The second article I choose to read was “Can you Make Money with a Cloud Database as a Service?” This article takes an in-depth look into a company called Xeround and their strategy to make the bucks in the database market using a cloud database. Xeround has raised a total of $38 million dollars in their effort to change their database to a cloud-based service. Some of their partners include Amazon and Rackspace. Most clouds service offer a range of storage from 0-10 GB where Xeround is developing a system that can hold from 0-50 GB. They are planning to market a pay per use strategy instead of a flat rate. This will encourage users to store a desired amount rather than paying for unused space. The CEO Razi Sharir claims “… use-cases have included iPhone apps and gaming all the way to business to consumer and business to business applications.” So the company has a large demographic to market to. He also talks about how they have a free version of their database and about 10% of the free users convert to paying to users.
The second article is more a business related article but helps tie the assigned article to the real world. It's always interesting to see the cost aspect of these type of systems and see their progression as competitors emerge.
Link to second article:
The second article here sounds interesting. I did not think of the connection between databases and cloud servers but it makes sense that databases would go to offsite locations. I still wonder if cloud computing has been developed far enough for businesses to trust putting their information into cloud servers. I guess for some databases a lot of the information is not very frequently accessed so its makes sense to have an offsite storage site for this information. However for information that is regularly used, any issue with the cloud service such as connectivity issues or general internet signal issues, could cripple a company's productivity. I wonder if the cloud service provider gives any sort of assurance about not have connectivity issues?
ReplyDeleteI too found that the AccessScience article was very informative in describing the relational database technology. I had a very vague image of what these relational databases are and had little to no experience in programming them. Their importance was very clearly defined though - it makes sorting through data much easier and allows for fast and fluid access to this data. I wonder where today's websites and servers would be without these relational databases.
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