Re: Is a RDBMS needed?

In terms of explaining the value of an RDBMS in terms that a business manager could relate to, here is my 2 cents worth.

• As an application operates, it usually stores data.
• While the data is accumulated to benefit the application, over time this data can become a valuable resource to the organization. Other applications can reference this data.
• If the data is stored in a normalized schema in an RDBMS, the data will be easily accessible for other purposes in the organization, using a variety of tools.

Dennis Williams

On Thu, Jun 9, 2011 at 10:22 AM, Blake Wilson <dasebw_at_uwo.ca> wrote:

> **
> Here at the University of Western Ontario we are looking at replacing our
> current Learning Management System. The current choices seem to be similar
> in technology and infrastructure - web tier, load balancer, application
> tier, back end RDBMS and some sort of content management system for the
> course content.
>
> However, the next release of one of our options will not have a RDBMS in
> the solution. It will be replaced by Apache Jackrabbit. The new system will
> have everything** treated as content, including grades, test questions and
> answers, discussion threads, syllabi, personal profiles, chat messages, and
> so on.
>
> This seems like quite a departure from normal RDBMS based solutions. Is
> this a good idea? Am I being a dinosaur by thinking that this is not a good
> idea? Do I need to keep up with the times? Is this the future of databases?
> This really looks to me like a return to design of 20 years ago.
>
> Thanks,
> Blake Wilson
>

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