Hi Paul

Paul Schmidt wrote:

>On Wed, 2004-05-12 at 12:05, Fred Pratt wrote:
>
>
>>Excellent info! The 40gb table limit will be a small problem for us, but not
>>insurmountable.
>>Thanks much,
>>Fred
>>
>>
>
>A 40GB table comes about for 1 of 2 reasons, first it could be not
>normalized enough, or there is too much data. Any good SQL book should
>deal with the first. I think the second needs discussion.
>
>
>

The data records are extreamly normalized, and small, the record size
being only 186 bytes.
Each record fully encapsulates a phone conversation.

>What often happens, is it's not too much data, it's too much data in
>"hot" storage. Most of that data should really be in "cold" storage.
>Take invoices for example, do you really need 10 years worth of invoices
>immediately available? Probably not, once they are paid, only
>government or company auditors might ever look at them. So it doesn't
>really matter if they take a while to access. Printed copies waste
>trees, but electronic copies don't. A Good way to get archival copies,
>is to print them to PS or PDF files and ship them off to a service
>bureau for printing on microfiche, the fiche is good long term storage,
>and it will likely still be usable in 50 years let alone 10.
>
>
>

I agree with you, as per the origional emails notation of natural
breakpoints.
Unfortunately, depending on the time of year, we can achieve 40 GB of
data, with only 90 days of information in hot storage.
This is all within a single billing period, for a single province (we
span a few).
Unfortunately, people seem to want to keep making phone calls. Each
call generates a record, even those that did not connect.

>Another item with invoices, is what data is required, it may simply be,
>invoice number, customer number, total before tax, each tax total, total
>after tax, and paid total. So storing all of the invoice detail may not
>be required either.....
>
>
>

Our customers have a tendancy to question each and every line item on
thier bill, and our customer service people have had to perform line
item adjustments for up to two previous billing periods (some people
don't open thier bills immediately, or read them a few months later.....)

>Paul
>
>
>

Alot of what you have said is true, unfortunately, some businesses
generate enormous amounts of data traffic.
Ours happens to be one.

best regards

Dalton