Experiences with [BLOB + Oracle] vs Storing it in OS Filesystem

Hello,
I know Oracle 11g has improved so much when talking about LOBs, but unfortunately our application is not certified on Oracle11g. So we're developing a project which uses Oracle 10g to store binary documents. Since our system is likely to grow up to some terabytes in two years, I'd like to ask if some of you have had some experience with storing a huge amount of blob objects in Oracle. How does it scale in performance?
Regards,
Juliano

Hello,
Thank you for the response. Well I'm really concerned about filesystem performance when dealing with millions of JPG files. There's also a concern about security, since it's easier for someone to change the files when they are stored outside the database.
I also know it will be a headache when trying to migrate it to 11G, if I store everything inside the db. It will also generate a large amount of redo, as you mentioned. But the question is: Are the presently available filesystems as reliable and scalable as a database? I've heard of people who had problems of losing the entire filesystem, but that was on Windows...
Any additional comment will be highly appreciated!
Juliano

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    When I bought the phone for then 500 pounds at the Nokia flagship store in London it seemed nice enough. Good camera, decent keyboard and features competitors could only dream of. Unfortunately, that's paperwork. For a start, the much advertised facebook application was completely disfunctional and taking into account that Nokia clearly tried to compete with the iphone (my apologies again for mentioning a competitor) frankly a lame joke. I know a firmware update has somewhat relieved the situation now, but I will come to that later.
    Okay, so I have disabled the facebook application. Not a drama, surely the rest will work okay. But then after a week some of the pictures I took with the built-in camera weren't accessible anymore (broken image displayed). Again, I have another camera and I was hoping for a firmware update so I ignored it. I had now started using the joikuspot app to browse the internet on my linux box. Very nice. I started using email a lot on my phone but again was disappointed. I have a £165 ipod touch here. Without kinetic scrolling and an extremely bad UI design, by which I mean the icons and menus (ignoring the graphics flaws all the time) it is no match for the ipod, so what i did was to use joiku spot with my ipod touch. Before that firmware update the N97s browser was also still buggy so I used joikuspot for that too. I was now down to using my £500 smartphone as a wireless modem. What a shame. But I was still hoping for some kind of magic update.
    Then finally, I found out about the firmware update. I had to open my phone, check the serial and visit the Nokia website. Unfortunately, the Ovi software and drivers supplied with the phone did not recognize my N97 properly. Something which I think was fixed with the firmware update (anyone seeing a circular dependency here? ) Furthermore, the built-in firmware update over 3G seemed to be disabled. So I made the journey back to the flagship store in London, explaining the problem. I was greeted by an extremly rude employee. Well, I think that's not really his fault, I guess he was just sick of all the complaints. Anyways, I told him that the 3G update was not working and he started to be really patronizing telling me that I wouldn't listen to him (he said it was "working" but "disabled"). Maybe I should have told him that I am a software engineer and that in 99.9% of the cases in which we disable a feature, the reason is that it is "not working". Anyways, he kindly allowed me to use one of their machines to update the firmware "at my own risk", which worked. At no point I have received an apology for the fact that I have paid Nokia £500 to beta-test their products.
    Now of course, the firmware update has succeeded, but is all fine? Far from it.... As many report on this forum the N97s battery meter is faulty. Countless times, my phone has just literally died overnight. It even forgets time and date! This is more than bad - every phone I have had so far complained about a draining battery well in advance. I had to dig out my old phone to serve as an alarm clock again - the fact that the alarm clock itself is unreliable is a alltogether different matter... One time the battery died during the day - after doing nothing for 4 hours in my sports bag (started with 1 bar down). When I had to make a call that day, for the first time in I don't know how many years I had to use a telephone box. Progress?!
    The firmware update has also barely improved the email client - just a few ui glitches solved. However, the biggest issue at the moment seems to be the weird memory organization. When I buy a phone I don't want to deal with something like the c drive problem. Reinstalling applications on the 32gb partition helps somewhat but why didn't Nokia do that in the first place? Has this phone never been tested?The phone is still way too slow.
    I can't comment on the iplayer app - says it needs wlan to work. But the youtube player has crashed every time i used it. And by crashing I mean it took down the whole phone with it. I admit that my ipod crashed a few times too - in just under a year (~3 times). But the reset was straightforward every time. With the N97, the only thing that seems to help is to take the battery out!
    Before I forget, the N97 doesn't even work as a phone. In a 30 minute conversation, the call got dropped 4 times. I don't know whether it was because of a calibration issue with the proximity sensor or a more serious problem, all I know is that this is unacceptable!
    I am sick of the phone and Nokia's service. The joikuspot app ran out and asks me to pay... I have paid £500 pounds for the bloody phone already. The adobe reader asks me to pay... (somehow it ran out without me even using it). Maybe you see why I am getting angry now - the only use case that actually put the N97 on top of my old phone was gone. What infuriated me even more, is that Nokia bundles this software with the phone. It cannot actually be deinstalled! It just sits there merrily and takes up my hard drive space.
    Last but not least, I have written to Nokia already, but not received a response! This is a Nokia forum with Nokia employees following the posts. I would be very, very, very grateful if Nokia could give me a refund. However, with them not even acknowledging the various problems I somehow don't see that coming. I'll probably have to sell it with a massive loss on ebay.
    Cheers,
    Will
    P.s.: I have all the same small issues as the other guys here - slider lock at the side not working etc. You are not alone... Has anyone complained about the music player? I have 16gb of music on the phone and scrolling is impossible! The Symbian OS is so obviously not built for a touch screen that it hurts. Of course they don't put much music on the phones in the Nokia store so people only find out when they get home...
    Message Edited by alcroth on 12-Sep-2009 11:32 AM
    Solved!
    Go to Solution.

    hi ! the nokia n97 is a really an amazing device. It keeps up to the promise of live online 24 x 7. I discovered it and wanted to share. Still there are some unanswered questions and if any vetran could help would really appreciate.
    i am an user from India. and have the n97 for about 3-4 weeks now. Practically I have been living online 24 x 7 as The list of unexpected issues that a nokia n97 offers seems unending, some of which i am narrating have made me scout on the web to try n search answers.Not that i will be able to action information you provide instantly. My new phone has gone for reparis(sic), so once its back can do that & will acknowledge your replies.
    My Quests:
    1. First things first! How to request for & get refunds for a Nokia Phone in India.
    2. Is there a touch querty as an input method? like windows mobile ? Request Know How. I now seem to agree to the feedback on one of the blogs.. that nokia designers feel that the average size of user hands would be that of big people & fingers like a japaneese teen. The physical keyboard does not seem to offer any additional functions other than text input !
    3. Predictive text where in the touch screen menu, the words dont get auto completed. This increases the number of taps/input strokes. Is the n97 intelligent & learn words from sms, contacts, emails. my blackberry does so. Request Know How & any options to edit custom dictionary. Auto Punctuation ? Am i expecting too much already ?
    4. Single hand use of phone impractical using touch pad t9. Entering alphanumerics on the physical querty is a nightmare... Request Know how on tips & tricks.
    5. Green tick yes or v button on top left of the text input screen. friendly again only for big handed people. Could this have been at bottom right. Is alternate screen for text input touch t9 available? Requested Know how.
    6. Unnecessary taps additional taps alomost in all menus...for eg.. sending a biz card from n97 requires 5 taps... in the other mobile phone systems it can be done in 3 taps. Requested Knowhow for shortcuts.
    7. Can In a nokia we get a view of the entire events as single thread.... No Provision for search display against keywords upon I can get call logs, messages - Here in Nokia, no search filters / advanced search and all searches results plotted to applications vs person/events. Requested Know How if it can be done like blackberry / windows mobile.
    8. Copy & Paste across applications. eg. Select text from web page copy n paste on message application.... possible on Nokia...? Requested Know How
    9. Call& Event Logs e.g Missed calls. If there are 5 missed calls the log will show the last called time only. In most other mobile systems Blackberry, windows each event is logged against a user. Requested know how on how this is handled in Nokia.
    10. Lag in picture display upon call. Number displays first and after few seconds lag the pic pops up. Is this normal & acceptable ? Other windows / rim devices show it instantly.
    11. When will Nokia enable usage of Native clients like google talk, yahoo like blackberry, iphone ? Any know how on possibility of release. Any equal alternatives suggested for n97. Tried Nimbuzz, Fring, Ebuddy. Miss the chat message notification icon on home screen, notification on the chat messaging icon, sound, breathing lights.
    12. Is there any planning for better email client? Likely Release dates?
    13. The Java App for GMAIL on blackberry shows an indicator on icon in addition to customised alert setting tone & breathing light for new messages. Retreiving Emails is consistent & auto on other devices. The Nokia Does not seem to auto refresh + No Notification. How is it handled on Nokia ?
    14. Can user friendliness be something where we can do actions with a contact or on contacts screen single view... e.g see contact on google map, Help on contacts screen/n97 help, lookup contact on server, filter by category. new address, new group, view, edit, delete, activity log (incl sms, mms, email, calls), call, sms, mms, email, send as attachment, send as im, add a custom ring tone, add picture, options - sort by, separators, sync settings, actions, switch
    applications, exit. We have seen it on inexpensive phones. is it possible to be done on Nokia?
    SOME OF MY STILL UNRESOLVED PROBLEMS Post upgrade to ver 12. Did you also face similar bugs/issues?
    15. Contacts inaccessible – “Memory Full Error”. No other applications were active at the time of the error. Just unable to reach any of my 3500 contacts through the contacts options & do anything.
    16. Pbk2 error upon selecting contacts in the messaging application.
    17. Audio Delay upon receiving a call. No Sound upon connection of incoming call. Especially if picked up too fast.
    18. Shows as searching for network constantly many times a day. We have 2 n97s & observed that both n97 almost have similar timing of network loss. Whereas, our other devices like blackberry do not show any weak signal signs.
    19. GPS Lock. Keeps searching for GPS locks constantly i.e Drops connection to GPS network frequently.
    20. Unpredictive battery talk time, standby & required Charge time.
    21. Voice inaudible at other end, when using loudspeaker & especially during calls from moving vehicle.
    22. Camera:
    a. Picture clarity issues. Secondary camera highly pixelated. Primary camera shows light flooding on pictures. Clarity Missing.
    b. Erroneous Time stamp on images.
    c.Lens Cover Started to show minor scratch pressure.
    23. Ovi Suite recommends erroneous updates for E.g Maps 3
    24. Text Input touch t9 screen freezes / Hangs, especially when entering special characters like period(.), comma(,), exclamation (!) etc
    25. Selectively & at random contact Name not displayed on Caller ID (sometimes)
    26. Selectively Message & Message delivery display number, instead of stored contact names.
    27. Sync Issue, All contacts not synced always.
    How to sync "categories" field as stored in outlook or how to map custom fields to Nokia.
    28. Format Mass Memory error, Unable to format. Unable to delete specific files.
    29. The auto lock... When attempted to unlock with querty out .. it still opens in portrait mode ?
    30. SMS Logs Not updated. e.g any sms sent before storing a contact.... after storing or adding
    contact the number does not get automatically updated to the name. It reflects the number still in the logs.
    31. Picture caller... The face is half cut ..Looks weird on most images... as the number is not transparent. In landscape mode there is enough space on the screen to put up the answer or reject buttons and displaying the numbers.
    32. Browser will close on its own & return to menu or home screen.
    thanks in advance for your time to stop & read. Pls do send any information that you think will be useful to me for making the n97 do some work.
    NEW additions:
    (tested on another n97)
    33. Predictive Text :
    Usage for auto word completion only on physical keyboard, when the Dpad down key is used it throws up options but the way the scroll is designed you can see the full word and one makes mistakes.
    34. another strange behaviour is on the text input... this was on an email i was trying to reply. the stylus touch will paste the last keyed in word !! we wonder why.
    35. and while showing off the second n97 we have (again 3-4 weeks old) - we were asked how much did we pay for this second hand unit - 50% off .. apparently the comment as the surface has got scratched very badly.
    i hope the info is good use to others who want to take the risk of buying this device

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