Traditional databases vs. XML vs. OLAP?

Question

Hi guys, I'm relatively new to databases and have been playing with SQL Server 2008 Express for some time. I want to build a database on stock prices and various other stock-related indicators across time. So basically it's going to have three dimensions: name of the stock, stock attributes, and time. The user will be able to query for certain stock's performance on a particular attribute across a designated time period.

Normally this would be a perfect job for OLAP (multidimensional database). However, due to financial constraint and other reasons :( , I am not considering OLAP at the moment. With my limited knowledge on databases, I think I could achieve the above by using:

1) Relational database: if I need to track 1000 stocks, I will construct 1000 tables, with time and stock attributes on each stock table.

2) XML: I am relatively new to XML too, but it seems that with some clever XPath/XQuery coding, dumping all the data into one huge XML database is not a bad idea (or is it?), as long as data can be effectively retrieved.

In terms of speed/performance, maintenance convenience, and server-memory efficiency, which of the above two is a better choice? Or do I really need to migrate to using OLAP?

Sorry if this is a simple question, I am a total newbie regarding databases.

Thanks in advance!! :)

Answer 1

Conventional:

Stock table - stock name and index

Price table - stock index, closing price and date



That's all you need. (You could even do with one table, but repeating the name in every record is considered "inelegant".)

Answer 2

ok.. i work with sql server , oracle, sybase , i have a experience with olap anx xml too.. first... SQL Server do the job but Oracle is much better, theres no doubt... Relational DB are used to people do this thinks... operational users wiht direct product for enterprise... .. Olap is tactical, it is used to directors, manager someone that ,make decisions.. . you use the base into Relational DB to build the Olap .... XML ... is not a database ok... is a way to exchage information between plataforms, programs ... in the future , you can bet to object database.. actually is not possible for the same reason that the relations dbs not present before 90s... hardware...

Answer 3

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