“One size fits all” database architectures do not work for DSS

The current state of internal database technology today is a " One Size Fits All " approach, Whether the database is being used to solve an OLTP problem or a DSS problem. all of the leading database manufacturers believe they have the right solution. This would be correct if the needs of an OLTP application resembled those of a DSS application. But in fact. their needs are very different, The physical database internal architecture designed to optimize for OLTP is very different from one designed to optimize for DSS, Not only would these two architectures be different, they would also be opposing. An architecture that optimized for DSS will degrade OLTP. and vice versa. We can say that OLTP and DSS have " Opposing Laws of Database Physics " There is also a relationship between the volume of data and the ability of a gwen optimized approach to work well. When the amount of data a database has is small, the difference in performance between an OLTP-based database architecture and a DS-based architecture is not very important, As the volume of data increases. the need for and the ability for one approach to stand out above another becomes more apparent The current database manufactures have designed database architectures optimized for their main business, OLTP. They have attempted to use their existing OLTP architectures to address the DSS side of the business, The performance of even simple user questions, such as " How many of my female customers in Mass. bought product A? " , can take hours to run. This has created a problem: " TOO Much Data, Not Enough Information ". I believe that over the next several years both the traditional database manufactures and others will develop internal database architectures optimized for DSS, New and immature examples exist today with products like Interactive Query Accelerator from Sybase, Redbrick, and OMNIDEX from DISC, The future may bring separate products or substantial add-ens to the traditional database providers' existing product suites. Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage, the ACM copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copyin is by permission of the Association of Computing ? Machinery.