back to article How to be certain about your data in an uncertain future

If it wasn’t for users, managers, or compliance execs, IT would be an easy place with goalposts that stayed put. The real world is far less predictable. The rules of play may change. So how do you design data strategies to cope? Data regulations are a good example. The EU’s Safe Harbour legislation made the rules clear when it …

  1. Lysenko

    Nonsense arguments

    >>You want to store the name of a customer’s parakeet? Just start adding >>that key value pair to records as you create them.

    Spam unstructured rubbish into the data model (oh, there isn't one - silly me) at will you mean?

    This sort of thing is trivial with an RDBMS. You can either:

    ALTER TABLE "Customers" ADD ParakeetName VARCHAR(30);

    Or:

    CREATE TABLE CustomerStringAttributes (

    AttributeName VARCHAR(20) PRIMARY KEY,

    AttributeValue VARCHAR(30)

    );

    ...and use the latter to create unlimited new "fields" in the Customers table. An RDBMS doesn't care about new columns or tables it hasn't otherwise been told about (relations, constraints etc). A client app doesn't care either unless you have hideous bad practice like:

    SELECT * FROM "Customers"

    if Cursor.Fields[14].AsString = 'Idiot' then...

    The difference with an RDBMS is you need to be the DBA to execute DDL statements so there is some sort of pollution control and you can avoid nonsense like multiple devs/apps/users creating the same attribute with divergent meanings. NoSQL like denormalization before it is a performance optimisation that sacrifices data integrity for speed. Nothing wrong with that of course, but implying it supports features impossible with an RDBMS is nonsense. Instant NoSQL:

    CREATE TABLE "NoSQL" (

    RecNo AUTOINC PRIMARY KEY,

    Key BLOB,

    Value BLOB

    );

    [*] I do use MongoDB for what it is good at. Storing JSON and replicating it around the system and to the web browser (MiniMongo/Meteor).

  2. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    Just 2 points, if I may

    1

    The ONLY way to solve all the problems, even before they occur, and avoid any trouble at all is of course Brisk OpDev (TM)! Contact me for details. I offer reasonable terms for consulting.

    2

    "And don’t let the CEO read Forbes" yeah, well, good luck with that.

    1. Lysenko

      Brisk OpDev (TM)

      Yesterdays methodology. To really transform your thought leading deliverables with a holistic focus on core competency metrics you need:

      Hyperconverged OpDev©.

  3. Domquark

    Not Quite....

    "The whole thing unravelled, leaving companies less certain about where they stood than before."

    Err, no.

    Safe Harbour my be dead, but what about EDPR or European Data Protection Regulation (also known as GDPR)? This is due to come into force any day now, with full compliance by the end of 2017. This regulation is compulsory and Europe-wide, so ANY company storing data "off-site" or in "the cloud" within European borders has a specific set of rules that they MUST abide by. And judging by the [new] rules, the cloud is about to become a very expensive place in Europe.

    See EDPR, Article 26 and 30.

  4. Domquark

    EDPR

    Amendment:

    EDPR/GDPR is due to come into force in April 2016.

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