[Orca-dev] Orca on rails?

[David Michaels]

Cynthia Kiser wrote:
> So what do you think about storing the data in a database?

That certainly has its merits, and there have been many times when I 
thought a database would make certain features easier (such as a sliding 
time scale).  But it has some downsides, as well.  For instance, it 
would add bulk and requirements and/or dependencies to the Orca 
distribution.  Right now, Orca has a pretty low overhead -- it runs 
every 5 to 10 minutes on a little server in a rack somewhere, that 
doesn't do much else.  It doesn't require much in the way of disk space 
either (compressed source data files are tiny, rrd files are small), and 
it's pretty easy for any unix-savy person to use.  Throw a database into 
the mix, and you suddenly have one or two more services that the 
processing box needs to run, and if you intend to keep all the raw data 
in the database, you also increase the disk space requirements.  Also, 
the Orca users would then have to be somewhat familiar with database 
administration, unless that could be made fairly transparent.

Those might not be big concerns for a lot of people -- disk space is 
fairly plentiful these days, and even if the requirements were magnified 
by a factor of 10, perhaps most people wouldn't be impacted much by 
this.  For those who would be, such as those with lower-end processing 
machines or tight disk space, an "OrcaLite" distribution or 
configuration could be created that would absent the database.  Could 
even be as simple as "configure --without-db" :)

> I am not sure about Adrian's idea of leaving the data in raw text
> files and then using RoR to process them on the fly (if I understood
> correctly what his second email proposed). I am afraid it would be
> slow - and might eliminate the easy browsing and poking around I enjoy
> with the current setup.

I didn't get the sense that it would break the current setup, but 
perhaps I missed something.  I saw that "on-the-fly" processing as an 
added feature above the current functionality.  If it were significantly 
slower than the current mechanism, I'd agree that would be concerning, 
but I'd be satisfied with a slightly higher patience requirement if it 
meant more functionality. :)

Just my $0.02.
--Dragon