Re: Database versus filesystem for storing images

2007/1/5, Jorge Godoy <jgodoy@gmail.com>:
> Andrew Chernow <pg-job@esilo.com> writes:
> > meet those requirements.  It is far more effecient to have apache access
> > them
>
> Where weren't we meeting his/her requirements?  All the discussion is around
> available means to do that.  One option is having the files on the database,
> the other is on the filesystem.  From my understanding we're discussing the
> benefits of each one.  Aren't we?

Yes, although I suggested two solutions I asked for anything that
would be considered the best practice. Now I think there is not a best
practice or better, there should be one best practice for each of the
solutions.

I have done an intranet application that stored images in the
database. It worked perfectly and I used the same engine in another
intranet application to store not only images but any document which
also worked perfectly.  The decision to go the dabatase only route was
easy: The filesystem space would have to be negotiated while the space
occupied by the databases were not controlled and used an advanced
storage solution that gave lots of terabytes to be used at will. Also
the any document application should not loose a single document and
access control should be strictly enforced which was much easier to do
with the database since I had no control over the webserver and even
if I had I think the database access is still easier to control than
the filesystem access. That was in a corporate intranet.

What I'm doing now is an internet application. While the FS x DB
synchronicity is very important in some kinds of document management,
it is not in this application. Indeed if a few images are lost each
day it has no meaning in a 500K to 1M inventory. The offended clients
just upload them again. No one will be sued. The images are all
public. No need to control the access.

But the main factor to push me in the file system direction is the
HTTP cache management. I want the internet web clients and proxies to
cache the images. The Apache web server has it ready and easy. If the
images where to be stored in the DB I would have to handle the HTTP
cache headers myself. Another code layer. Not too big a deal, but if
Apache give me it for free...

I wonder why this HTTP cache headers argument didn't surface in this
heated debate. Aren't DB developers/admins aware of the internet
client's bandwidth limitations? Or they just assume the application
would handle the HTTP cache headers? In the applications I created for
intranet bandwidth was almost a non issue and I didn't care to make
them bandwidth efficient, but for the internet the problem is there
and it is big.

Regards,
--
Clodoaldo Pinto Neto