The purpose of this paper is to clarify the differences in latency between PostgreSQL and MongoDB as a consequence of their differences in software architecture. This has been achieved through benchmarking of Insert, Read and Update operations with the tool “Yahoo! Cloud Serving Benchmark”, and through source code analysis of both database management systems (DBMSs). The overall structure of the architecture has been researched with Big O notation as a tool to examine the complexity of the source code. The result from the benchmarking show that the latency for Insert and Update operations were lower for MongoDB, while the latency for Read was lower for PostgreSQL. The results from the source code analysis show that both DBMSs have a complexity of O(n), but that there are multiple differences in their software architecture affecting latency. The most important difference was the length of the parsing process which was larger for PostgreSQL. The conclusion is that there are significant differences in latency and source code and that room exists for further research in the field. The biggest limitation of the experiment consist of factors such as background processes which affected latency and could not be eliminated, resulting in a low validity.

Η eXtensible Markup Language (XML) είναι εμφανώς το επικρατέστερο πρότυπο για αναπαράσταση δεδομένων στον Παγκόσμιο Ιστό. Αποτελεί μια γλώσσα περιγραφής δεδομένων, κατανοητή τόσο από τον άνθρωπο, όσο και από τη μηχανή. Η χρήση της σε αρχικό στάδιο περιορίστηκε στην ανταλλαγή δεδομένων, αλλά λόγω της εκφραστικότητάς της (σε αντίθεση με το σχεσιακό μοντέλο) μπορεί να αποτελέσει ένα αποτελεσματικό \"όχημα\" μεταφοράς και αποθήκευσης πληροφορίας. Οι σύγχρονες εφαρμογές κάνουν χρήση της τεχνολογίας XML εξυπηρετώντας ανάγκες διαλειτουργικότητας και επικοινωνίας. Ωστόσο, θεωρείται βέβαιο ότι η χρήση της σε επίπεδο υποδομής θα ενδυναμώσει περαιτέρω τις σύγχρονες εφαρμογές. Σε επίπεδο υποδομής, μια βάση δεδομένων που διαχειρίζεται την γλώσσα XML είναι σε θέση να πολλαπλασιάσει την αποδοτικότητά της, εφόσον η βάση δεδομένων μετατρέπεται σε βάση πληροφορίας. Έτσι, όσο οι εφαρμογές γίνονται πιο σύνθετες και απαιτητικές, η ενδυνάμωση των βάσεων δεδομένων με τεχνολογίες που φέρουν/εξυπηρετούν τη σημασιολογία των προβλημάτων υπόσχεται αποτελεσματικότερη αντιμετώπιση στο παραπάνω μέτωπο. Αλλά ποιος είναι ο καλύτερος τρόπος αποδοτικού χειρισμού των XML εγγράφων (XML documents); Με μια πρώτη ματιά η απάντηση είναι προφανής. Εφόσον ένα XML έγγραφο αποτελεί παράδειγμα μιας σχετικά νέας τεχνολογίας, γιατί να μη χρησιμοποιηθούν ειδικά συστήματα για το χειρισμό της; Αυτό είναι πράγματι μια βιώσιμη προσέγγιση και υπάρχει σημαντική δραστηριότητα στην κοινότητα των βάσεων δεδομένων που εστιάζει στην εκμετάλλευση αυτής της προσέγγισης. Μάλιστα, για το σκοπό αυτό, έχουν δημιουργηθεί ειδικά συστήματα βάσεων δεδομένων, οι επονομαζόμενες \"Εγγενείς XML Βάσεις Δεδομένων\" (Native XML Databases). Όμως, το μειονέκτημα της χρήσης τέτοιων συστημάτων είναι ότι αυτή η προσέγγιση δεν αξιοποιεί την πολυετή ερευνητική δραστηριότητα που επενδύθηκε για την τεχνολογία των σχεσιακών βάσεων δεδομένων. Είναι πράγματι γεγονός ότι δεν αρκεί η σχεσιακή τεχνολογία και επιβάλλεται η ανάγκη για νέες τεχνικές; Ή μήπως με την κατάλληλη αξιοποίηση των υπαρχόντων συστημάτων μπορεί να επιτευχθεί ποιοτική ενσωμάτωση της XML; Σε αυτήν την εργασία γίνεται μια μελέτη που αφορά στην πιθανή χρησιμοποίηση των σχεσιακών συστημάτων βάσεων δεδομένων για το χειρισμό των XML εγγράφων. Αφού αναλυθούν θεωρητικά οι τρόποι με τους οποίους γίνεται αυτό, στη συνέχεια εκτιμάται πειραματικά η απόδοση σε δύο από τα πιο δημοφιλή σχεσιακά συστήματα βάσεων δεδομένων. Σκοπός είναι η χάραξη ενός πλαισίου αναφοράς για την αποτίμηση και την αξιολόγηση των σχεσιακών βάσεων δεδομένων που υποστηρίζουν XML (XML-enabled RDBMSs). / The eXtensible Markup Language (XML) is obviously the prevailing model for data representation in the World Wide Web (WWW). It is a data description language comprehensible by both humans and computers. Its usage in an initial stage was limited to the exchange of data, but it can constitute an effective \"vehicle\" for transporting, handling and storing of information, due to its expressiveness (contrary to the relational model). Contemporary applications make heavy use of the XML technology in order to support communication and interoperability . However, supporting XML at the infrastructure level would reduce application development time, would make applications almost automatically complient to standards and would make them less error prone. In terms of infrastructure, a database able to handle XML properly would be beneficial to a wide range of applications thus multiplying its efficiency. In this way, as long as the applications become more complex and demanding, the strengthening of databases with technologies that serve the nature of problems, promises more effective confrontation with this topic. But how can XML documents be supported at the infrastructure level? At a first glance, the question is rhetorical. Since XML constitutes a relatively new technology, new XML-aware infrastructures can be built from scratch. This is indeed a viable approach and there is a considerable activity in the research community of databases, which focuses on the exploitation of this approach. In particular, this is the reason why special database systems have been created, called \"Native XML Databases\". However, the disadvantage of using such systems is that this approach does not build on existing knowledge currently present in the relational database field. The research question would be whether relational technology is able to support correctly XML data. In this thesis, we present a study concerned with the question whether relational database management systems (RDBMSs) provide suitable ground for handling XML documents. Having theoretically analyzed the ways with which RDBMSs handle XML, the performance in two of the most popular relational database management systems is then experimentally assessed. The aim is to draw a frame of report on the assessment and the evaluation of relational database management systems that support XML (XML-enabled RDBMSs).

網路開放商業化以來，各式各樣的商機在網際網路上浮現，大小商家紛在網路上設立據點，或從事廣告、宣傳公司形象，或展示產品內容與產品功能，有的更進一步的設計能與消費者在網路上直接交易，我們概括性的稱之為電子商務。在電子商務的背後，各網站必須要有資料庫作支撐，才能有好的效率和服務。本研究以網際網路資料庫為探討主體，績效為探討目的。並主要以績效評估(Benchmark)理論為貫穿整個研究的基礎理論，一步步地建立適合網際網路資料庫及運算作績效評估的模型。並於模型完成後，予以程式化實作，並以所得數據作測試。 / A lot of business opportunity springs after commercial activities are officially allowed on Internet. The power and the potential of this market is represented by lots of web sites being set up. "Electronic Commerce" is coming to the whole world. However, it is the database supporting business web sites running that counts. Based upon the theory of benchmarking, we want to find out ways that we can know the performance of web database. After the model is set up and the workload is ready, an implementation is being made.

The current popular, distributed, n-tiered, object-oriented application architecture pro- vokes many design debates. Designs of such applications are often divided into logical layer (or tiers) - usually user interface, business logic and domain object (or data) layer, each with their own design issues. In particular, the latter contains data that needs to be stored and retrieved from permanent storage. Decisions need to be made as to the most appropriate way of doing this - the choices are usually whether to use an object database, to communicate directly with a relational database, or to use object-relational mapping (ORM) tools to allow objects to be translated to and from their relational form. Most often, depending on the perceived profile of the application, software architects make these decisions using rules of thumb derived from particular experience or the design patterns literature. Although helpful, these rules are often highly context-dependent and are of- ten misapplied. Research into the nature and magnitude of 'design forces' in this area has resulted in a series of benchmarks, intended to allow architects to understand more clearly the implications of design decisions concerning persistence. This study provides some results to help guide the architect's decisions. The study investigated and focused on the <i.performance of object persistence and com- pared ORM tools to object databases. ORM tools provide an extra layer between the business logic layer and the data layer. This study began with the hypothesis that this extra layer and mapping that happens at that point, slows down the performance of object persistence. The aim was to investigate the influence of this extra layer against the use of object databases that remove the need for this extra mapping layer. The study also investigated the impact of certain optimisation techniques on performance. A benchmark was used to compare ORM tools to object databases. The benchmark provided criteria that were used to compare them with each other. The particular benchmark chosen for this study was OO7, widely used to comprehensively test object persistence performance. Part of the study was to investigate the OO7 benchmark in greater detail to get a clearer understanding of the OO7 benchmark code and inside workings thereof. Included in this study was a comparison of the performance of an open source object database, db4o, against a proprietary object database, Versant. These representatives of object databases were compared against one another as well as against Hibernate, a popular open source representative of the ORM stable. It is important to note that these applications were initially used in their default modes (out of the box). Later some optimisation techniques were incorporated into the study, based on feedback obtained from the application developers. There is a common perception that an extra layer as introduced by Hibernate nega- tively impacts on performance. This study showed that such a layer has minimal impact on the performance. With the use of caching and other optimisation techniques, Hibernate compared well against object databases. Versant, a proprietary object database, was faster than Hibernate and the db4o open source object database. Copyright / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Computer Science / unrestricted