Do we even need relational databases?

There's another angle to this debate about denormalized data and the Web, which is the question of whether or not relational databases are even necessary. Look at SAP as an example, we're doing the transaction management, optimization, and security up in the application stack, I'd be willing to be that you could run run an R/3 system on flat files. The Web clearly demonstrates that relational databases could be considered optional. SPARQL is enabling CRUD operations against RDF... the entire web is, as Brad puts it, becoming a massively decentralized and denormalized database.

Link: Feld Thoughts.

Voila – the web is now a massively denormalized database.  I’m not sure if that’s good or bad (in the case of the web, denormalization does not necessarily equal bad).  However, I think it’s a construct that is worth pondering as the amount of denormalized data appears to me to be increasing geometrically right now.

Comments

[Vinnie Mirchandani]

SAP should have used your argument in 93-4. Back then Oracle put you on the defensive by sayiong you were not taking advanatge of native capabilities etc. There is too much corporate data in RDBMS to just walk away from them. A better question we should be asking is should we paying that much maintenance and DBA salaries/SI fees for Oracle, DB2 etc. We need to start thinking of them more as sunset technologies.

[Rob]

I wonder what Google uses for a database to track the necessary relationships that fuel their search and ad business? They are looking at innovative things for many things ... maybe how they use databases as well?

[Tom Foydel]

There is no question that the rdbms has added another layer of cost and maintenance to most business systems. Companies that look at new systems are surprised at the cost and the need for ongoing maintenance - another headcount, or two, in many cases. This is why on-demand computing is really taking off. On the other hand, for many new web services the stack still uses mysql. Don't you need something on the back end to manage relationships? Even a commodity dbms?