Grant Allen wrote:
>
> Storage engines are unique to MySQL? yes. Is that good? YMMV. Most
> of the purported benefits can be achieved with Oracle's features
> without the compromises of balkanised storage engines. You're right,
> they're not offered by Oracle, or anyone else ... there's a reason no
> other database bothers with storage engines - they got storage right
> the first time :-) (ooh ... the flames I'll get for that :-) ). Sure,
> non-volatile data in a MyISAM table can be read at the speed of light,
> and handle the odd insert. Funnily enough, a text file has the same
> properties. They both suck for non-trivial concurrent transactions.
> I'd suggest taking a look at parallel DML, nologging, MVs,
> partitioning, direct-path insert, appended insert, RAC, ASM, ASSM,
> etc. etc. etc. in Oracle for more perspective
>
Grant,
LOL - an entertaining read!
One advantage of multiple storage engines that comes to mind is that you
can streamline your setup for different workloads:
- Innodb/Falcon for non-trivial concurrency workloads
- Myisam for fairly static or bulk-loaded (mainly) read workloads.
Is is hard - maybe impossible - to design one storage that engine does
*everything* well (e.g Oracle is not that good for very large data
warehouses, as any Teradata sales bloke will tell you...), so I think
this is a useful feature unique to Mysql.
Cheers
Mark
