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Posted to user@lenya.apache.org by Eric Rodriguez <to...@yahoo.com> on 2004/11/30 17:51:41 UTC
Database over XML File system
Can anyone give me some pointers as to what advantages does an XML
repository system has over a database one. For me an XML repository is
fine but i have to argue about it with some clients. They want to have
all content on an Oracle database and then tranform it to XML so that we
can use Lenya.
So, any pointers are greatly appreciated,
Eric Rodriguez
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Re: Database over XML File system
Posted by "Gregor J. Rothfuss" <gr...@wyona.com>.
Eric Rodriguez said:
> Can anyone give me some pointers as to what advantages does an XML
> repository system has over a database one. For me an XML repository is
> fine but i have to argue about it with some clients. They want to have
> all content on an Oracle database and then tranform it to XML so that we
> can use Lenya.
most databases tend to have relatively primitive xml support (bascially
treating it as blobs). there are typically extensions that allow xpath
access into these blobs and some support to try to map a xml structure
onto the relational model.
xml databases are natively built for xml queries and also treat the whole
database as one big xml document.
of course in the future, xquery will bring these two worlds very closely
together, and it should not matter much.
since lenya does not use xml queries at this time it is fine to use
oracle. of course, if your publication has these needs, you may still want
to use a xml database.
--
Gregor J. Rothfuss
COO, Wyona Content Management Solutions http://wyona.com
Apache Lenya http://lenya.apache.org
gregor.rothfuss@wyona.com gregor@apache.org
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Re: Database over XML File system
Posted by "Gregor J. Rothfuss" <gr...@apache.org>.
Markus Vaterlaus said:
> PS: An enhancement of Lenya with capabilities to use Oracle's XML
> features would be very welcome, at least from my point of view, as
> Oracle is one of the major players in the enterprise DB market and
> already in use with a lot of firms. (please don't flame me, I know,
> Oracle is not OSS ;-))
patches to have the default publication optionally store some doc types
via jdbc would certainly be welcome, and could be a good first step. of
course, one could also give the usual answer "the repository will take
care of it", but in the meantime, people want to deploy publications :)
--
Gregor J. Rothfuss
COO, Wyona Content Management Solutions http://wyona.com
Apache Lenya http://lenya.apache.org
gregor.rothfuss@wyona.com gregor@apache.org
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Re: Database over XML File system
Posted by Markus Vaterlaus <mv...@gmail.com>.
Hi Eric, hello all,
during the last months I've set up three different applications at
work using cocoon. As lenya works on top of cocoon, these examples
might be of interest for you. Maybe a short description of each help
you with your arguments.
The first one is a glossary application consisting of about 500 terms,
defined in several langauages and serving different channels. The xml
files are stored in the filesystem. This works great as access is
read-only and modification to the terms happen rarely. The update and
publication process is a well defined and handled apart from cocoon.
This means the application serves almost static files, most of them
from cache, therefore storage does not matter.
The second one offers a technical indepth view to an existing business
application. The whole application data of the business application
is stored in a Oracle DB. The cocoon application does the SQL-queries
and transforms the results to a XML and HTML. The latter is used as a
GUI to view all information about the data stored in Oracle (a kind of
meta data). The cocoon application is solely a viewer (however there
are plans to enhance it with the possibilites to manipulate the data
in Oracle). The files served from the cocoon application are highly
dynamic and are generated each time upon request. The application
relies heavely on the data from the business application already
stored in the Oracle DB.
The third one is an enhancement to to the business application
mentioned above. Some descriptive data stored with the application
will be changed from plain text to XML. For accessability reasons the
data is stored as XMLType in Oracle. Cocoon addresses manipulation
issues of this data. In this case, it's important, that all data from
the business application is kept in one place, which means in in the
Oracle DB.
I hope, you see more clearly no. IMHO the important criteria for the
decission about data storage is the kind of data your contents are,
how you plan to access them and with what frequency and what
intention. If you are thinking about a "normal" CMS site, then
sophisticated databaseoriented access strategies are not a must.
Access to data from readers and editors will not happen every second.
And even, if they do, pages for the readers (or parts of them) can be
servered from cache or by proxy. They don't need to be generated with
every request. Therefore a performant access is not much of an issue.
Storing the xml data in the file system is sufficient and you avoid a
lot of hassle and headache.
Markus
PS: An enhancement of Lenya with capabilities to use Oracle's XML
features would be very welcome, at least from my point of view, as
Oracle is one of the major players in the enterprise DB market and
already in use with a lot of firms. (please don't flame me, I know,
Oracle is not OSS ;-))
On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 17:51:41 +0100, Eric Rodriguez <to...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Can anyone give me some pointers as to what advantages does an XML
> repository system has over a database one. For me an XML repository is
> fine but i have to argue about it with some clients. They want to have
> all content on an Oracle database and then tranform it to XML so that we
> can use Lenya.
>
> So, any pointers are greatly appreciated,
> Eric Rodriguez
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@lenya.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@lenya.apache.org
> Apache Lenya Project http://lenya.apache.org
>
>
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Re: Database over XML File system
Posted by Philipp Stecher <ph...@hexdust.net>.
Eric Rodriguez wrote:
> Can anyone give me some pointers as to what advantages does an XML
> repository system has over a database one. For me an XML repository is
> fine but i have to argue about it with some clients. They want to have
> all content on an Oracle database and then tranform it to XML so that we
> can use Lenya.
Hi,
Im very new to Lenya, so dont take me to serious ;-)
But in spring i had the chance to play a little with Cocoon 2 & Oracle 10g.
What I found was the following:
* Cool XML support built directly into the database. You can use special
SQL statements that produce XML directly from relational content. Or you
can store native XML documents as XMLType, which gives you the
opportunity to use XML Schema for validation. If you have the Schema
registered in the database you can even use the XML elements & content
inside SQL - select them and so on. It all looked to me like a perfect
blend between XML & SQL (Goodies like XML enhanced search, webdav access
to XML repository, ....)
* Cool XML support in Cocoon....you know that ;-)
* Difficulties in bringing the two togehter: I wrote a generator for
cocoon (for the fun of it ;-) but couldnt get the XML via JDBC - except
as a string which is really awckward. Even oracle native java classes
looked like they had trouble getting the XML via JDBC.
All in all I can recommend an Oracle DB (_MUST_ be 10g, XML not well
supported in 9i or lower) for highly dynamic data applications but you
should excpect to loose some of the advantages due to JDBC. There are of
course other ways to get the XML out of the DB, but i had no chance to
try them....;-(
A blend of a fast way to get the XML out of the DB and XSP to get it in
via JDBC seems good to me.
Good luck
Philipp
>
> So, any pointers are greatly appreciated,
> Eric Rodriguez
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@lenya.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@lenya.apache.org
> Apache Lenya Project http://lenya.apache.org
>
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Re: Database over XML File system
Posted by al...@owal.co.uk.
Michael Wechner said:
> Eric Rodriguez wrote:
>
>> Can anyone give me some pointers as to what advantages does an XML
>> repository system has over a database one. For me an XML repository
>> is fine but i have to argue about it with some clients. They want to
>> have all content on an Oracle database and then tranform it to XML so
>> that we can use Lenya.
Generally a client who recommends this is thinking about supporting the
database long term. Oracle is a well known problem and thus can be
factored into running costs. You can go out to the marketplace and get
loads of oracle experts/DBAs. You can't do the same thing with most XML
databases.
You can however store XML in Oracle - depending on the granularity of
retrieval you want.
A similar argument is sometimes used against MySQL and postgreSQL. It
isn't about whether the software is better, or more efficient, but usually
just what their guys already know.
Alex
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Re: Database over XML File system
Posted by Michael Wechner <mi...@wyona.com>.
Eric Rodriguez wrote:
> Can anyone give me some pointers as to what advantages does an XML
> repository system has over a database one. For me an XML repository
> is fine but i have to argue about it with some clients. They want to
> have all content on an Oracle database and then tranform it to XML so
> that we can use Lenya.
it depends on what kind of queries one wants to make ;-)
just my 2 cents
Michi
>
> So, any pointers are greatly appreciated,
> Eric Rodriguez
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: user-unsubscribe@lenya.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: user-help@lenya.apache.org
> Apache Lenya Project http://lenya.apache.org
>
>
--
Michael Wechner
Wyona Inc. - Open Source Content Management - Apache Lenya
http://www.wyona.com http://lenya.apache.org
michael.wechner@wyona.com michi@apache.org
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Re: Database over XML File system
Posted by Jean Pierre LeJacq <jp...@quoininc.com>.
On Tue, 30 Nov 2004, Eric Rodriguez wrote:
> Can anyone give me some pointers as to what advantages does an XML
> repository system has over a database one. For me an XML repository is
> fine but i have to argue about it with some clients. They want to have
> all content on an Oracle database and then tranform it to XML so that we
> can use Lenya.
* Much simpler initial setup and maintenance.
* Native XML support in contrast to relational databases which will
typically support XML documents as blobs.
* Ability to use standard file system utilities like find, grep,
sed, ...
For me, the major advantage that relational databases provides is
transactional semantics (assuming you design for it appropriately).
Transactionally safe file system based repositories are possible but
Lenya isn't based on such as system.
--
JP
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