What Database is the best Database?

Quite often I see blogs that compares couple of databases and in the end they end up selecting a best database. I always wonder about the objective of such blogs because to me database is nothing but a solution to facilitate storing and retrieval of data in a structure manner. I am not going in to the details of structure data because that is a science in itself. The scope of this blog is limited to the fact that databases are used to store and retrieve information. So in my opinion the real question is not a blanket statement asking for what is the best database but the real question is about what database is best for particular kind of environment/application?
We all know database is just the part of an entire solution and it has to fulfill the very specific requirements of an application and this statement alone can guide us to the answer. We are living in a very evolved database era there are so many options to choose from and many companies are focusing/including various feature in their database solution. Take example of Mysql it has multiple database engine and it will be unfair to say it is best or worst database without going into the details of very specific need of it. It all depends on what is the expectation and how it is going to be used. Its default engine is MyISAM that is a good candidate for read only non transactional data but for anything else it could be the worst choice. So it just highlights the need of little more contextual diligence and purpose while choosing the best database. Similarly another open source database postgres focuses more on data integrity and transactional consistency. Many expensive database solution like oracle are taking the challenge to a completely different level they are not only investing in the RDBMS solution in fact they have started to manage each aspect of data right from storage to its performance. Their Automatic storage management and Auto tuning DB is very popular for quite some time. Even postgres offer such functionality to some extent and Mysql’s InnoDB has evolved quite a bit too. So the point is there are so many choices and so many specific feature that one really needs to drill down to the actual intent of the application in defining and selecting a best database. I would also like to mention that in the end even choosing a best database for your application is not enough. One also can’t ignore the investment in the engineering resource needed for it. It is becoming increasingly important with lots of available open source option. Since its open source so how well it works will pretty much depends on engineers who designed it and it’s not such a bad thing. Who else can do more justice to your application other than them? At InMobi we are using multiple databases and they being used because of their merit and specific contribution to solve a particular application problem.So we don't have a best database at InMobi but every application in InMobi has a database that makes most sense for it. I hope my blog will help people to solve the epic database selection problem in more contextual way and by asking right questions.

SMS – Old is still gold.

At the time of Mobile revolution SMS was created just as a very simple VAS offering where user can interact with simple exchange of text messages. Many other format of interaction came and gone but SMS is still standing tall. Despite of enormous technological advancement in the mobile VAS area SMS is still the most widely used VAS offering across the world no doubt about it. So the question arises what makes it so popular over much advance interactive mobile channels like WAP chats and IMs. The answer is easy it’s the sheer simplicity of use, Freedom from device, calling plan or service parameters and low cost factor. These are the few well qualified attributes that make SMS a force to recon with and provide it unfair advantage over any other interactive VAS offering.
We at mKhoj (India’s first interactive mobile advertising and deal platform) recognize the power of SMS and that’s why we chose SMS as our preferred medium for mobile advertising and publishing great deals . mKhoj service is available on all other platforms also like WEB or WAP but we are expecting a big chunk of traffic to come via SMS. In order to keep our SMS interaction with customer simple and useful mKhoj has deployed a very unique platform. mKhoj platform derives the most accurate interpretation of user’s request by using technology to correct spelling mistakes and use synonyms to return the best possible results . mKhoj is committed to provide excellent user experience and value for our services by deploying the best technology available .I truly believe that in future mKhoj would to able to bring some more innovation in mobile VAS industry but for now here is one for the power of mighty SMS!!!

Signing off from Mumbai
Mohit Saxena