Scaling web apps

March 7, 2006 16:59:53.794

Dare Obasanjo has a nice summary of a scaling talk given at ETech - lots of good stuff, but this bit at the end is especially interesting:

One big lesson learned about database scalability is that 3rd normal form tends to cause performance problems in large database. Denormalizing data can give huge performance wins.

Step one: Defeat the Architecture Astronauts :)

Comments

Performance is not a result of 3rd Normal Form

[Ravi] March 7, 2006 18:04:58.605

I have extensive experience with databases, some that I have designed. All my experience shows that normalized databases outperform de-normalized databases overall.

The fact that their 3rd normal form database did not perform well, suggests that the data modeller and DBA did not know their jobs well enough.

Dessert Toppings and Floor Wax

[Patrick Logan] March 7, 2006 21:40:19.507

I think this is another case of "depends". Depends on what the db is used for, what kinds of reads, writes, etc. when you have to read vs. when you have to write.

Physical Logical Confusion

[Rex] March 10, 2006 13:44:12.372

It would surmise that it's not normalization per se but its implementation in SQL. It's hard to even discuss these things without defining terms before hand. See this:

http://www.inconcept.com/JCM/May2002/pascal.html