The software I use at work is SQL, provided by our Corporate Gods. It is badly conceived, poorly written, incompetently executed, but I have no choice but to use it. Every "upgrade" they force on us makes things worse. I have more experience in my area of work than any other employee in the corporation which has, I'd guess, about 50,000 employees, so I know whereof I speak. I would estimate that my workload has increased by 40-50% in the two and a half years we have used this software, producing the same output but at a considerable lesser quality. Because of this software I have actually changed my retirement plans, I am going to retire three years sooner than originally planned.

One of the quaint aspects of this software is that there is no way to purge obsolete data. I mean, no way whatsoever. Any bit of data entered in the system, no matter how trivial or time-limited is retained forever. So the database(s) in the system continue to grow without limit. I don't know how many different inter-related databases there are, or maybe, horrors, it's all in one big flat file with lots of indices. Beats me... but I do know that just the data that I put in is probably generating between 2,000 -- 3,000 new bits of retrievable information every day. And I'm not the only one entering data.

So now the question.How big can an SQL database system get before it collapses under its own weight?

I'm seeing hints of impending trouble already. The system is becoming less stable, the last update to the software ended up causing random bits of corruption and data loss here and there. The technical support for this software is superb, the best I've ever had for any product, hardware or software. They tell me not to worry.

What do you guys think?

tanstaafl.