Re: How will you use SQL server for unstructured information analy

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From: David Portas (REMOVE_BEFORE_REPLYING_dportas_at_acm.org)
Date: 11/20/04 

Date: Sat, 20 Nov 2004 17:29:13 -0000

SQL Server is a relational database (RDBMS - strictly speaking a
pseudo-relational SQL database). The Relational model is a powerful way to
represent and manipulate many kinds of data but to use an RDBMS effectively
you need to have some prior knowledge about the metadata - the structure and
rules for the data you need to represent - and be able to model that
metadata in relational terms. The metadata should be more or less static
during the life of the system as it isn't usually feasible to change the
model frequently during everyday usage.

So in a nutshell, yes, there needs to be some kind of structure to the
information you are modelling to make effective use of a database such as
SQL Server. However I would still ask you to define "unstructured" before I
could give you a definite answer about SQL Server's suitability for a
particular scenario. Digital data is rarely entirely unstructured: Images;
recorded media; free-form text documents; programs; web pages - all of these
have metadata with identifiable attributes that you may find it appropriate
to model in a relational database.

As for what advantage SQL Server would give you - that really depends on
what you want to do. Advantage relative to what? 

-- 
David Portas
SQL Server MVP
--

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