What does the MD in Oracle's MDSYS stand for? - oracle

Oracle has an user called MDSYS.
What does the MD stand for? Something like 'main database'?

Multi Dimensional System: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_Spatial_and_Graph.
An option to include multi-dimensional (spatial) data in databases. It isn't a phrase they seem to use often though.

Related

Cassandra/Hadoop WITH COMPACT STORAGE option. Why is it needed, is it possible to add it to existing tables/cf

I'm working on a Hadoop / Cassandra integration I have a couple of questions I was hoping someone could help me with.
First, I seem to require the source table/cf to have been created with the option WITH COMPACT STORAGE otherwise I get an error can't read keyspace in map/reduce code.
I was wondering if this is just how it needs to be?
And if this is the case, my second question was, is it possible/how do I add the WITH COMPACT STORAGE option on to a pre-exsting table? .. or am I going to have to re-create them and move data around.
I am using Cassandra 1.2.6
thanks in advance
Gerry
I'm assuming you are using job.setInputFormatClass(ColumnFamilyInputFormat.class);
Instead, try using job.setInputFormatClass(CqlPagingInputFormat.class);
The Mapper input for this is Map<String, ByteBuffer>, Map<String,ByteBuffer>
Similarly, if you need to write out to Cassandra us CqlPagingOutputFormat and the appropriate output types.
See http://www.datastax.com/dev/blog/cql3-table-support-in-hadoop-pig-and-hive for more info.
#Gerry
The "WITH COMPACT STORAGE" thing is CQL3 syntax to create tables structure compatible with Thrift clients and legacy column families.
Essentially, when using this option, the table, or should I say column family, is created without using any Composite.
You should know that CQL3 tables heavily rely on composites to work.
Now to answer your questions:
I was wondering if this is just how it needs to be?
Probably because your map/reduce code cannot deal with Composites. But I believe in version 1.2.6 of Cassandra, you have all the necessary code to deal with CQL3 tables. Look at classes in package org.apache.cassandra.hadoop.
is it possible/how do I add the WITH COMPACT STORAGE option on to a pre-exsting table?
No, it's not possible to modify/change table structure once created. You'll need some kind of migrations.

How do I select from a custom UDF in Vertica

I would like to query a list of values from the database, then use it as input for my custom C++ UDF.
The idea being that I'd grab the mapping from the database when the query started. This is the part I don't know how to do from within C++.
SELECT 'foo',val ...
Then the return value of my custom_scalar_func, I could map the similar names and derive my new value.
SELECT custom_scalar_func(some_other_val,'foo') ...
Heard back from their support, Vertica does not support being able to run queries from within a UDx.
A mandatory requirement is to have Vertica SDK.
Also, it is highly recommneded you will have the Vertica documentation,
especially Programmer's Guide and SDK doumnetation.
Both of them can be downloaded from here (after registration):
https://my.vertica.com
Additional great source would be the Vertica contributed packages located in github here:
Vertica github home page
I found great example of SUDF (Scalar User Defined Function) in here:
Vertica Scalar word count function
According to the Vertica documentation:
"You create your UDSF by subclassing two classes defined by the Vertica SDK: Vertica::ScalarFunction and Vertica::ScalarFunctionFactory."
This is the basic, I think after you look at the link above (wordcount), you will understand how it works.

Logical grouping schemas in ORACLE?

We are planning a new system for a client in ORACLE 11g. I've been mostly in the Sql Server world for several years, and am not really current on the latest ORACLE updates.
One particular feature I'm wondering if ORACLE has added in by this point is some sort of logical "container" for database objects, akin to Sql Server's SCHEMA.
Trying to use ORACLE's schemas like Sql Server winds up being a disaster for code comparisons when trying to push from dev > test > live.
Packages are sort of similar, except that you can't put tables into a package (so they really only work for logical code grouping).
The only other option I am aware of is the archaic practice of having to prefix object names with a "schema" prefix, i.e. RPT_REPORTS, RPT_PARAMETERS, RPT_LOGS, RPT_USERS, RPT_RUN_REPORT(), with the prefix RPT_ denoting that these are all the objects dealing with our reporting engine say. Writing a system like this feels like we never left the 8.3 file-naming age.
Is there by this point in time any cleaner, more direct way of logically grouping related objects together in ORACLE?
Oracle's logical container for database objects IS the schema. I don't know how much "cleaner" and "more direct" you can get! You are going to have to do a paradigm shift here. Don't try to think in SQL Server terms, and force a solution that looks like SQL Server on Oracle. Get familiar with what Oracle does and approach your problems from that perspective. There should be no problem pushing from dev to test to production in Oracle if you know what you're doing.
It seems you have a bit of a chip on your shoulder about Oracle when you use terms like "archaic practice". I would suggest you make friends with Oracle's very rich and powerful feature set by doing some reading, since you're apparently already committed to Oracle for this project. In particular, pick up a copy of "Effective Oracle By Design" by Tom Kyte. Once you've read that, have a look at "Expert Oracle Database Architecture" by the same author for a more in-depth look at how Oracle works. You owe it to your customer to know how to use the tool you've been handed. Who knows? You might even start to like it. Think of it as another tool in your toolchest. You're not married to SQL Server and you're not being unfaithful by using Oracle ;-)
EDIT:
In response to questions by OP:
I'm not sure why that is a logistical problem. They can be thought of as separate databases, but physically they are not. And no, you do not need a separate data file for each schema. A single datafile is often used for all schemas.
If you want a "nice, self-contained database" ala SQL Server, just create one schema to store all your objects. End of problem. You can create other users/schemas, just don't give them the ability to create objects.
There are tools to compare objects and data, as in the PL/SQL Developer compare. Typically in Oracle you want to compare schemas, not entire databases. I'm not sure why it is you want to have multiple schemas each with their own objects anyway. What does is buy you to do that? Keep your objects (tables, triggers, code, views, etc.) in one schema.

How do you choose storage engines for Oracle?

Ok the question is obviously wrong as it stands, but I'm wondering how can I choose storage implementations on Oracle as I would for MySQL, say I want one table to MyIsam like and another for Archiving only and one Black Hole style for test purposes. How would I go around to doing this within a single Schema, or something similar that would meet these needs?
Oracle does not have a storage engine concept like Mysql does. It stores all tables in its own format in datafiles. What you can do is use different tablespaces and store them on different disks whose performance characteristics may be different.
The concepts guide may help you understand how Oracle works.
http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14220/toc.htm
You may use ORGANIZATION EXTERNAL:
CREATE TABLE ORGANIZATION EXTERNAL
and select an access driver to use with it.
As for now, Oracle has ORACLE_LOADER to access CSV and like text tables (read-only), and ORACLE_DATAPUMP to read and write binary data (in custom format).

Hbase / Hadoop Query Help

I'm working on a project with a friend that will utilize Hbase to store it's data. Are there any good query examples? I seem to be writing a ton of Java code to iterate through lists of RowResult's when, in SQL land, I could write a simple query. Am I missing something? Or is Hbase missing something?
I think you, like many of us, are making the mistake of treating bigtable and HBase like just another RDBMS when it's actually a column-oriented storage model meant for efficiently storing and retrieving large sets of sparse data. This means storing, ideally, many-to-one relationships within a single row, for example. Your queries should return very few rows but contain (potentially) many datapoints.
Perhaps if you told us more about what you were trying to store, we could help you design your schema to match the bigtable/HBase way of doing things.
For a good rundown of what HBase does differently than a "traditional" RDBMS, check out this awesome article: Matching Impedance: When to use HBase by Bryan Duxbury.
If you want to access HBase using a query language and a JDBC driver it is possible. Paul Ambrose has released a library called HBQL at hbql.com that will help you do this. I've used it for a couple of projects and it works well. You obviously won't have access to full SQL, but it does make it a little easier to use.
I looked at Hadoop and Hbase and as Sean said, I soon realised it didn't give me what I actually wanted, which was a clustered JDBC compliant database.
I think you could be better off using something like C-JDBC or HA-JDBC which seem more like what I was was after. (Personally, I haven't got farther with either of these other than reading the documentation so I can't tell which of them is any good, if any.)
I'd recommend taking a look at Apache Hive project, which is similar to HBase (in the sense that it's a distributed database) which implements a SQL-esque language.
Thanks for the reply Sean, and sorry for my late response. I often make the mistake of treating HBase like a RDBMS. So often in fact that I've had to re-write code because of it! It's such a hard thing to unlearn.
Right now we have only 4 tables. Which, in this case, is very few considering my background. I was just hoping to use some RDBMS functionality while mostly sticking to the column-oriented storage model.
Glad to hear you guys are using HBase! I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but here are a couple of things that might help.
HBase is based on / inspired by BigTable, which happens to be exposed by AppEngine as their db api, so browsing their docs should help a great deal if you're working on a webapp.
If you're not working on a webapp, the kind of iterating you're describing is usually handled with via map/reduce (don't emit the values you don't want). Skipping over values using iterators virtually guarantees your application will have bottlenecks with HBase-sized data sets. If you find you're still thinking in SQL, check out cloudera's pig tutorial and hive tutorial.
Basically the whole HBase/SQL mental difference (for non-webapps) boils down to "Send the computation to the data, don't send the data to the computation" -- if you keep that in mind while you're coding you'll do fine :-)
Regards,
David

Resources