[dba-Tech] database

Hi Arthur:

That question will be asked again after any potential government audit is
completed and related issues resolved. The government does demand seven
years of data but given that the company has new owners, five years of
working data is all that is required.

If things do not go well after the audit, the government may want to look
back in the older data more for establishing a trend of differences between
the real accounts and posted accounts than specifics.

I hadn't thought of moving the archive to a different server but that is a
good idea. This database is primitive compared to the modern systems and
even though this functionality does exist (or exists now), it has all been
hand-coded. 

In the near future, I would like to move the whole POS to the web...almost
have the owners convinced but will have to provide proof of concept,
guarantee absolute security and acceptable performance (perhaps the most
difficult as a POS must be blazingly fast or instantaneous).

Your comment of moving the old data to a static database is definitely a
good idea.

Aside: The new system will be all browser based; lots of JSON files,
JavaScript and then touch screens capability(?). That is why I am trying to
get up to speed in InginX and Node.js and get away from OS and Server
(Cloud?) dependency...and then there is the BE database but that is a big
question mark. To be able to re-market a product is the long-term vision. 

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Fuller
Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2013 11:47 AM
To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] database

The first question I'd ask, and doubtless you did, is, "How frequently will
the old data ever be needed?" And the follow-up, "How far back?" Presumably
the answer is a gradient, something like "the past five years, once a
month; the previous five years before that, once a quarter or year; and the
rest once in a blue moon."

My reasoning is this. I'd prefer (SQL licensing and version permitting) to
partition the tables across several hard disks, leaving only the past 5
years or so immediately accessible, and hitting the remote hard disks and
partitions only occasionally. This would sidestep the need for any
additional code or restore-procedures, etc. IIRC, this capability is
available only in the more expensive licensing agreements and versions,
which is why I asked about those.

Another take on this, with similar perspective, is based on the simple
notion that there is a "contemporary" window, beyond which data will never
change. That suggests a possible move of all that old data into an Analysis
Services database, which would be de-normalized and with all its counts and
sums all available in pre-calculated form. That would require some serious
space, but on the other hand, what in this business is cheaper than disk
space?

Arthur