2007/1/5, Jorge Godoy <jgodoy@xxxxxxxxx>:
Andrew Chernow <pg-job@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > meet those requirements. It is far more effecient to have apache access > them Where weren't we meeting his/her requirements? All the discussion is around available means to do that. One option is having the files on the database, the other is on the filesystem. From my understanding we're discussing the benefits of each one. Aren't we?
Yes, although I suggested two solutions I asked for anything that would be considered the best practice. Now I think there is not a best practice or better, there should be one best practice for each of the solutions. I have done an intranet application that stored images in the database. It worked perfectly and I used the same engine in another intranet application to store not only images but any document which also worked perfectly. The decision to go the dabatase only route was easy: The filesystem space would have to be negotiated while the space occupied by the databases were not controlled and used an advanced storage solution that gave lots of terabytes to be used at will. Also the any document application should not loose a single document and access control should be strictly enforced which was much easier to do with the database since I had no control over the webserver and even if I had I think the database access is still easier to control than the filesystem access. That was in a corporate intranet. What I'm doing now is an internet application. While the FS x DB synchronicity is very important in some kinds of document management, it is not in this application. Indeed if a few images are lost each day it has no meaning in a 500K to 1M inventory. The offended clients just upload them again. No one will be sued. The images are all public. No need to control the access. But the main factor to push me in the file system direction is the HTTP cache management. I want the internet web clients and proxies to cache the images. The Apache web server has it ready and easy. If the images where to be stored in the DB I would have to handle the HTTP cache headers myself. Another code layer. Not too big a deal, but if Apache give me it for free... I wonder why this HTTP cache headers argument didn't surface in this heated debate. Aren't DB developers/admins aware of the internet client's bandwidth limitations? Or they just assume the application would handle the HTTP cache headers? In the applications I created for intranet bandwidth was almost a non issue and I didn't care to make them bandwidth efficient, but for the internet the problem is there and it is big. Regards, -- Clodoaldo Pinto Neto
