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sirbobz's avatar

How scalable are relational databases?

There has been a lot of talk about non-relational databases and how they are better than relational ones.

At what point should one start thing about shifting to them especially when working with a SAAS

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4 replies
tinfoilman's avatar

Relational databases are plenty scalable. I'm sure most of the biggest websites in the world use them.

Non-relational databases are better for doing certain things, but not all. I'd recommend looking at your specific models for your application and decide where relational vs non-relational makes sense. You can use both, just like it's common to use in memory key value stores like Redis in conjunction with any database.

mabdullahsari's avatar

Each technology has a specific strength. There is no single right answer.

You'll have to examine your use case and deduce which database driver will suit your needs best.

Read up on ACID for SQL and CAP for NoSQL I'd say.

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jlrdw's avatar

Some Huge companies use SAP, they handle millions of transactions (database records) Yearly. Some probably a lot more. So That has always been good enough for me.

You have to properly handle huge data, i.e., archive old data, properly index, query only whats needed.

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martinbean's avatar
Level 80

@sirbobz Well companies like Facebook and Twitter still use relational databases, so maybe stop worrying about what some person on the Internet said you “should” be using in a blog post and just build your project using well-tested technology.

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