Database for a Forum like Tek-Tips?

[essa2000]

Dears;

I want to know following :

1- Which database is used for this forum Tek-Tips
2- What should be the proposed database size for it.
3- It is very fast in searches and it contains full memo fields , HOW ?
4- Can anyone give me a database structure for this kind of forum which is fully relatoinal.

Thanks for helping me out, in advance.

Regards,
essa2000

 

[ColinM]

1. SQL Server is used. (I just recently got a SQL Server locking error whilst posting!). From the http address I think it is used in conjuction with ColfFusion? (CFM)

2. Work out the column sizes, record size, number of records, size of indexes (can be big!), expected growth/month . This should get you in the ballpark.

3. It may be using full-text indexes? Also need to allocate space for these.

4. erm.. nope! sorry. But heres an article about thread discussions to get you started.

http://www.sqlteam.com/item.asp?ItemID=1353

 

[cfFran]

With regard to question 3. ColdFusion contains a Verity Search Engine. One possibility is that the forum uses indexes (Verity collections) that allow searches of the words in the text of database fields. Verity provides that kind of search under its Custom index option. Anybody know for sure?

 

[DarkMan]

I know for sure...

We do use ColdFusion and SQL Server.

As far as searches go, we could use ColdFusion's verity, but we simply have far more posts than verity can handle, so we're using SQL Server's text indexing, which is okay, but there does seem to be a storage limitation with that as well (it's not been fully indexing the site for a couple months now, we're looking into it)

The size of the database is really going to depend on how big your forums get. Ours is in the 8 gig range, but we have not erased any data since 1998. Text indexing will at least double the amount of storage you need.

As far as the actual structure goes, sorry, but that's info I just can't give out. I can tell you though, that it is a pretty standard snowflake type arrangement, mostly to 3rd normal form, but I did denormalize a few tables for performance.

Hope that helps. Doug Trocino
dtrocino@tecumsehgroup.com

http://www.tek-tips.com

Technical Director
Tecumseh Group, Inc.

 

[essa2000]

Dear ColiM and Doug Trocino,

Thanks a lot to answer my question, now I got for which I was looking for. I had the idea about it. Actually , I am working on a Enterprise application and I need to do different kind of searches and consider the performance w.r.t to speed. I was thinking about the database of tex-tips which performs quick search and keep full log of each user. I am also using SQL Server 2000 and VB 6.0.

However, I got my answer. Thanks a lot.

Regards,
Muhammad Essa Mughal