Are Relational Databases Obsolete?

jpkunst sends us to Computerworld for a look at Michael Stonebraker's opinion that RDBMSs "should be considered legacy technology." Computerworld adds some background and analysis to Stonebraker's comments, which appear in a new blog, The Database Column. Stonebraker co-created the Ingres and Postgres technology while a researcher at UC Berkeley in the early 1970s. He predicts that "column stores will take over the [data] warehouse market over time, completely displacing row stores."

Comments

Mod Article -1 (Author doesn't get it)

[DrinkDr.Pepper]

Relational databases aren't being obsoleted. Some schema design heuristics are.

well

[stoolpigeon]

every article linked makes it clear that this is about warehousing as opposed to oltp. so is the technology dead? no - can it do everything? no

Are relations obsolete?

[roman_mir]

Once someone shows that there is no longer a use for any relationship between data entries, then we'll be able to say that RDBMSs are obsolete. Actually both headlines (/. and the linked article) are mistaken about what Michael Stonebraker is saying. He is talking about read intensive applications mostly and he is talking about optimization of data for reading purposes. This does not mean that RDBMSs are obsolete for all uses, just that he sees a faster way to retrieve data for certain uses.

Re:Stonebraker's current track record

[WindBourne]

Not Quite. Stonebraker was THE core developer on Ingres which was the second relational DB created (System R was the first developed by Codd et.al using SQL). He operated at both ends of the spectrum. Gray/Mohan did the same as well. While System R disappeared, Ingres was developed into a major company (ingres) and was ultimately bought by CA.
Later, Stonebraker's work on postgres (theorey AND code) was how to handle different datatypes within databases. He took an OO approach to that. That was directly used in Illustra and then went on to Informix. More importantly, Oracle used a lot of that work to create 8i as has other DBs. IOW, he IS a leading theorists AND knows the code.

Considering that he has been on top of all the major advances within the DB world, why would you discount what the man says? As it is, you mention Gray and Mohan who both did some good work at IBM, but have not really advanced DBs forward that much. They simply moved relational model DB forward( Bascially, they were red herrings). But Stonebraker is working across ALL the spectrums and contributes heavily to knew models. His work is everywhere.

Finally, think about what he says. The column major is more useful for data warehousing BECAUSE it allows for data to be compressed quickly, tighter (which makes sense), AND allows you to work with just the data that you need. In a row major, you will end up creating and maintaining indexes to increase the speeds of reads. But an index is for the most part a single (or just a few) columns, which basically makes them a column major. But this requires LOADS of cpu and space to maintain. The column major approach simply keeps the indexes, if you will and discards the rows. This allows for FAST operations if you are doing LOADS of reads, and little changes. That is PERFECT for data warehousing.

So armed with that knowledge, exactly WHY would you discount his work and his statements?