I’m not sure why you say RAM vs disk-based benchmarks are really stupid? Disk is what everybody has right now, so it seems like a natural point of comparison to get customers thinking about the merits of their current technology platform. I do understand that it becomes easy to make very significant claims, but that’s partly the point of showing the basic advantage of technology approach, no? I would think the key thing right now is to show why they’re orders of magnitude better than the incumbent technology, not some fraction better than some other startup approach. What’s your take on this?

I actually appreciated their use of an open-source benchmark, since some one else can show why Groovy’s not the best RAM-based option with the same benchmark.

You’ve nailed it.

Not sure if that’s the worst product page EVER, but having a product pitch mixed in gets major — well, I’d say red marks, but on an almost unreadably bright orange page, who would notice those?

I don’t actually have an opinion on the Dell benchmark per se.

I think benchmark comparisons of RAM-based vs. disk-based DBMS are really stupid.

Your comment about Groovy’s supposed market focus doesn’t happen to jive with what CEO Joe Ward told me a couple of days ago, but I agree that would seem to be an obvious fit for their technology.

The only reason MySQL comes into the picture is that it was the previous best one. I’m sure they would have preferred to compare with Oracle, but that’s not what the Dell benchmark showed.

If other RAM-based vendors can show better performance than them, it’s an open-source benchmark and they’re welcome to do so. Or if Curt thinks the Dell benchmark is nonsense, he should explain why or suggest an alternative.

But I don’t understand the reason for all the heat.

It’s a RAM-based DBMS proving the “surprising” fact that it beats a disk-based DBMS’s performance all to hell.

What about apple/coconut comparisons don’t you like?