Storing Your Data

Where are we going to put all this stuff?

With potentially hundreds of thousands of pictures and rows upon rows of data, this is an important question for any new website project. With technology, there is always more than one way to do something. The same holds true for how RelicRecord.com is being built.

If you’ve ever asked a technologist a question on the best way to perform some computer task, chances are you will get back “it depends” as a response. We say “it depends” because the details matter. While frustrating at first, working through the details will guide you to the correct answer (until technology options shift again).

For RelicRecord, we are leveraging options within Microsoft Azure to help with the details. We will use a mixture of different storage and retrieval mechanisms to save your photos, preferences and data for the items you collect.

For your photos, we will use Microsoft Azure Storage (blob storage to be specific) which provides a very convenient mechanism to store and retrieve images. Due to the way the “cloud” works, it is best for us not to save the pictures in what you would consider a “folder”. With blob storage, we can save multiple sizes of your photos and serve them up as appropriate in a very cost effective manner.

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For most of the core website data, we will use SQL Azure which is a cloud based MS SQL Server option. SQL Azure provides a developer a familiar way to search and retrieve details (using SQL) about your items which are common across all users. Data such as an item’s name, description, dates and more will be stored. As RelicRecord grows; and the types of items users want to store grows, we are planning to add a NoSQL solution to the mix. The NoSQL addition will essentially let you associate any type of data that you want with your items.

In addition to these products, RelicRecord will also employ a handful of other services to make the retrieval and display of your data a little faster while trying to keep costs down. We are making use of these services so we can deliver a stable, secure and fast service for our users.

Have questions? Always feel free to shoot me an email at mitchell@relicrecord.com. Having the chance to hear from collectors will help us build a product you’ll use and enjoy!

Take care,

Mitchell