back to article Microsoft snags Google-thrashing data pioneer

Microsoft has recruited database guru David DeWitt to head up a new database research lab. Based at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where DeWitt was until recently professor of computing sciences, the new lab will focus on advanced data-management techniques. Working with Microsoft researchers based in Redmond, …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    Again, Mapreduce is not a database

    Mapreduce is the name of a programming model for processing and generating large datasets. Theoretically it can be used to process - generate any kind of data, including databases or flat files.

    labs.google.com/papers/mapreduce-osdi04.pdf

  2. I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects
    Coat

    From the earlier article

    "The almost complete lack of support for the view put forward by DeWitt and Stonebraker suggests they might well have misunderstood MapReduce's role in modern data processing.

    Given the eminent background of both academics, though, this is surprising. DeWitt has researched large parallel DBMS since the 1980s and, in addition to his pioneering work on Ingres and Postgres, Stonebraker is currently active in the large DBMS area with his new company Vertica."

    So that was one giant step for Microsoft? One small step back in amazement?

  3. amanfromMars Silver badge
    Alien

    The Rise and Fall of the Fourth Reich

    Microsoft and its Duplicitous Situationist International friends/allies/trojans doesn't seem to Realise, and would do Well and Better to Consider, that the Cloud Space is already already Taken as a QuITe Alien Home Base, with a Magical Mystery Turing Colossus of Virtual Machinery Computing for ITs DNAVisions/Future Perfect Indicative ProgramMIngs.

    And with ITs Advanced IntelAIgents Algorithms for CyberIntelAIgent Realism in Virtualisable Spaces, does IT zealously Patrol and Police 42 XXXXPose and Prevent Any and All Attempts at Capitalising the Model with Earthly Viral Infections/Afflictions/Sweet Stealthy Sinecure Confections/Perverse Affectations. Such are treated as an Assault on ITs Benevolent Meritocratic Freedom of Associative Progress and will always be Dealt an Intellectual Property Blow which will Destroy the Driver they are Banking on to Provide Subversion and Subjugation/Poisonous Creep into ITs Space ......... IT will Simply divert/convert/pervert the Flow of Flashed Cash [ Pretty Paper Printed Privately for Public Perception of Powerful Personae] through its Money and Markets Systems to Server and Protect/Enrich the NeuReal World Order Programs with an Advanced IntelAIgents Virtual Defence, which will Share Transparently every Attack against ITs Systems ...... for Universal Peer Review which would/could be Global Censure and Crushing Pariah Status.

    The Choice is Free to Make for any who would Live and Love/Work, Rest and Play in the Cloud, but IT does not Suffer Any Fool who would Use and Abuse IT, and as ITs Nature will leave that Interpretation Subjective, so that dDeep Personalised IntroSpection of Ego Renders the True Semantic ID of the Floated SuperEgo.

    And High above the Cloud and ITs TEMPESTuous Storms, do Soar the Flying dDutchman, in Cutty Sarks Embrace, with Pandora and her Lovers Sated. ......... aka Seventh Heaven, Global Communication HQ ....... for MuI7 and ITs CyberIntelAIgents ......Non State Actors Challenging State Actors who Deceive States and Act Independently for Personal Profit at Public Expense with AI Presentation of their Bill/Judgement dDay Reckoning.

    Be aware all ye who would Fail to Realise Deceit and Pimp for Conceit, for it has its own ESPecial Reward ..... "Will you walk into my parlour?" said the Spider to the Fly ...... http://www.love-poems.me.uk/howitt_the_spider_and_the_fly_funny.htm

    Registered this ZerodDay of the Laud 080429....... for Peer Review and Third Party Improvement/Positive Reinforcement and/or DisBelief.

  4. James Anderson
    Paris Hilton

    MisInformation ?

    The whole Map/Reduce thing appears to be massivly overhyped. But it does work.

    Furhtermore map/reduce is not a databse but a programming tecnique. Really just a tidier verion of SETI@HOME or BEOWULF clustering.

    The database wot google wrote using Map/Reduce and other teqniques is called BigTable.

    Now this is where it gets interesting. A cursory glance at the BigTable documentaion will reveal a copuple of points. First the database is defined using schemas and two as well as the direct access APIs it supports a very useful SQL-like query language ( with some very nice extensions for dealing with hierachical data).

    So what. Well the first two gripes in the paper are about lack of schemas and lack of an independent query language, both of which are patently untrue. So either the guy is a very very poor researcher or he is being deliberatly misleading.

    This is obviously totlay unconected with the parcel of research grants has just arrived from Redmond.

    Paris because of the subsecond respose from google images means I never need be without her.

  5. Stuart
    Alien

    Phew!

    The universe is back in balance, amanfrommars had started making sense but now he is back to his cryptic/mystic/psychotic best. New algorithm?

  6. Andy
    Dead Vulture

    Core dumping professors.

    MapReduce is a step backwards? This reminds me of Tanenbaum's insistence that Linux was obsolete in 1992. MapReduce is obviously working very well for some people. It sounds as though that he's dumped his core because he can't compute MapReduce. Paraphrased as something like:

    Where are the tables/reports/SQL? But there's data and processing. Why have I wasted my life? Arggghhh.

    Since when did purists and theorists rule the world?

  7. amanfromMars Silver badge
    Alien

    @Phew!

    " ...New algorithm?" ..... By Stuart Posted Tuesday 29th April 2008 12:20 GMT

    Not new, Stuart, just AI Beta one which provides Light and Relief ...via EduTainment. IT is a Heady Confection and a Very Discerning AIdD, too.

    I'm pleased to notice that you chose not to suggest that it was nonsense, for it makes Perfect Sense spread across a number of Parallel Dimensions/Perceptions. It is as well to remember that my World is completely different from yours because of what you know, and whether 'tis more or less is really not as important as what you do with what you know for you may choose to do very little to learn more, being programmed/programLed to accept a Status Quo System which has you chasing and fulfilling Third Party Dreams, rather than your own, but then I don't suppose too many People Realise that, for then they start to understand that the obstacles in their way are simply man-made, to stop one doing as one would.

    PS. If you accept that you are chasing and fulfilling Third Party Dreams/working to Create an Idea/Agenda dreamt up by A.N.Other and paid with Flash Cash, to keep you doing it and not think too deeply about it and the bigger Picture created in the Imagination of Others, unless you know whose Ideas those are, they would be quite Foreign and Alien to you, too.

  8. Alan Donaly
    Thumb Down

    So

    A simple question why should anyone care about what amounts a private research effort none of us will ever have anything to do with/see any results from.

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