patternMinor
In terms of databases, what does 'roach motel' mean?
Viewed 0 times
roachdatabaseswhatmeanmoteldoesterms
Problem
Recently Larry used it in one of the OpenWorld keynotes.
Wikipedia says
In computers, sometimes as slang use:
I fail to understand the meaning here. In what situations will one not be able to check out the data?
Wikipedia says
In computers, sometimes as slang use:
- Sometimes used to refer to a proprietary file standard -- "you can check your data in, but you can't check it out".
I fail to understand the meaning here. In what situations will one not be able to check out the data?
Solution
Generally, I understand (could be wrong of course) it to be either
The second point is seen every day
You buy an app that runs on a mainstream RDBMS: you can report on data, extract it, mine it whatever. Or you buy an app that locks the data into some internal, opaque, proprietary format (not a well known one like PDF or DOC or XLS) where you are forced to use the vendor's (perhaps limited) API.
A couple of other examples
- opaque vendor lock-in
- difficulty in re-using data how you want
The second point is seen every day
You buy an app that runs on a mainstream RDBMS: you can report on data, extract it, mine it whatever. Or you buy an app that locks the data into some internal, opaque, proprietary format (not a well known one like PDF or DOC or XLS) where you are forced to use the vendor's (perhaps limited) API.
A couple of other examples
- Larry Ellison on Salesforce
- Facebook vs Twitter
Context
StackExchange Database Administrators Q#6844, answer score: 5
Revisions (0)
No revisions yet.