Subject Areas
| Data Modeling | Where I talk generally about how to build highly scalable, maintainable and performant databases | |
| Databases | Opinions, tips and trick specific to a specific database vendor | |
| Grade of the Steel | Putting databases to the test and doing extreme tuning. | |
| Programming | General programming tips and tricks. Typically related to high speed synchronisation techniques or algorithms. |
There are some general themes that repeat themselves throughout this blog.
Big Data vs. Data Warehousing
My basic architectural argument is that you should target data warehouse products to systems that HAVE a data model and that Big Data is best used where the model is more loosely defined and near schema-less – which include many of the data structures traditionally used for auditing and history tracking.
If you think of the data flow at a very high level, from a source to the warehouse, this is my approach:
I have written quite a few blog posts that I hope you will find are coming together in a coherent theme of design guidelines. To make it easier to locate them, I have provided the index below.
Keys and how to handle them
In order to deliver clean and integrated data, the proper and high performance handlings of keys is crucial. I have blogged extensively about this here:
- Why Integer Keys are the Right Choice
- Good keys, what are they like?
- An Overview of Source Key Pathologies
- Transforming Source Keys to Real Keys (two parts)
- Physically Placing the Maps in the architecture
- Why Surrogate Keys are not Good Keys
Warehouse Knowledge
Information about large databases and how they work.
Myth Busting
I like to put “common sense” recommendations from the database community to the test. Here are the posts I have written about this so far:
Thomas,
I really enjoyed the “Transforming Source Keys to Real Keys” series and the “An Overview of Source Key Pathologies” post and would like to review them again. The links to these posts seem to be broken on Google as well as within the site. Are these posts still available and if so would you be able to share the links to them?
Best Regards
Hi Jesse
Strange, I just Googled them and found both. They are here:
http://kejser.org/an-overview-of-source-key-pathologies/
http://blog.kejser.org/transforming-source-keys-to-real-keys-part-1-introducing-map-tables/
… Could you provide me with the link you use please and I will set up a redirect.
Good blog post. I certainly love this site. Thanks!
Pingback: Good keys, what are they like? « Thomas Kejser's Database Blog
Pingback: Intermezzo–Data Modeling « Thomas Kejser's Database Blog
Pingback: Defining the Good Data Model « Thomas Kejser's Database Blog
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Pingback: Why “Date BETWEEN FromDate AND ToDate” is a dangerous join criteria « Thomas Kejser's Database Blog
Pingback: Boosting INSERT Speed by Generating Scalable Keys « Thomas Kejser's Database Blog
Pingback: Why Surrogate Keys are not Good Keys « Thomas Kejser's Database Blog
Pingback: Physically Placing the Maps in the architecture « Thomas Kejser's Database Blog
Pingback: Transforming Source Keys to Real Keys – Part 2: Using Maps To Fix Key Problems « Thomas Kejser's Database Blog
Pingback: Transforming Source Keys to Real Keys – Part 1: Introducing Map tables « Thomas Kejser's Database Blog
Pingback: An Overview of Source Key Pathologies « Thomas Kejser's Database Blog
Pingback: Why Integer Keys are the Right Choice! « Thomas Kejser's Database Blog