A question about design!

[TonyJ]

Hello!

Assume we have a steelwork with a lot of different working places.
Just to mention some we have a rolling mill, we have casting and heating and
then many many more.

Is it possible to say something about the design. Is it advisable to have
only one database or it it better to
have a database for each workingplace and then have message communication to
update each other.

Just want to have your opinion about this matter.

//Tony

 

[Peter Bradley]

Depends on the size of the Steelworks, the size of your database server(s)
and the quality of your network, as well as the organisation of the works.

Distributed databases are a bear. Keeping them in step is very hard and
none of the solutions are completely satisfactory IMHO. So if you can keep
everything together without compromising performance too much, you'll make
your life a lot easier.

Having said that, I have to stress that I'm only talking about data that is
common to the entire works. Data specific to, say, the melting shop, might
be kept separately. So for instance if the melting shop keeps its own
stocks of things like alloys (e.g. nickel, chrome, molybdenum etc - if
you're making stainless )) and consumables (firebricks, fireclay, ingot
moulds etc), it may keep that on its own database and simply pass a message
to the ERP system when reorder levels are reached - assuming that orders are
placed centrally. Data about production plans and cast burdens and so on,
would presumably be kept locally to the melting shop.

It often depends on the way in which the works is organised. If all stocks
are controlled centrally, for instance, you'd probably want a single,
central database. Whereas if they're decentralised (as in my example
above), you'd probably want a decentralised data store with messaging links
to other applications.

IMHO, YMMV, etc


Peter

 

[Mark Wilden]

Assume we have a steelwork with a lot of different working places.
Just to mention some we have a rolling mill, we have casting and heating
and
then many many more.

Is it possible to say something about the design. Is it advisable to have
only one database or it it better to
have a database for each workingplace and then have message communication
to
update each other.

One database until you see that you need two databases.

///ark