-----Original Message----- From: Ben Scott [mailto:[email protected]] Subject: Re: Mail server software
On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 10:43 PM, Ken Schaefer <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hmm - do you use a DBMS (like SQL Server or Oracle) as well? > Actually, not really. We're small. (There's a couple MSDE instances, and a > Firebird instance, > all in support of various applications, but they're more "embedded" then > something we use in > and of itself.) > > And that's the thing: What typically separates an embedded database from a > "real DBMS" is that > a DBMS is generic, and has lots of general-purpose tools to explore and > manipulate the data, > independent of any particular application or use. Just like we have for a > filesystem. Just like we > *don't* have for ESE. :) DBMSes are just binary blobs, and require an API for access. And then they typically require a driver that uses that API. And all the tools are built on top of that. It's just that there are a few such tools. Exchange provides APIs for accessing data inside Exchange, and you should use those APIs. Just like Active Directory provides APIs for accessing AD. And so on. > More to the point, email doesn't really fit the database model. > Email doesn't consist of fixed-length records, or rows and columns. > Email is a bunch of discrete, variable-length entities, with arbitrary > internal structure. > In other words, it's a lot more like a bunch of files than database. > > Someone on the Sunbelt Exchange list once remarked that ESE is as much like > a filesystem as it is > a traditional database. Which I'm guessing is true. But that leads to the > question... why not use the filesystem? :) I don't know what the Exchange team things. I'd say, given how much more is stored in Exchange than just email, and additionally all the other products that interface with it, one of the issues is that it's hard to store relationships between entities in a file system Cheers Ken ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
