[Acd-devel] Proposal for DB design

[Josh <jos...@el...>]

So, Matt proposed this on the way home.  What do you all think of having
a set of "standard" data that is organized in well-normalized tables.
So, for example (best viewed in a monospace font);

instance_ids
  hostname
  instance_id >---\
cpu               |
  speed           |
  architecture    |
  model           |
  cpu_id >------- |
cpus            | |
  instance_id <-|-- 
  cpu_id <------  |
custom            |
  type            |
  attribute       |
  custom_id ----| |
customs         | |
  instance_id <-|-/ 
  custom_id <---|

Hope that makes sense.  So we define a core set of data that ACD
will gather.  Then any additional data will appear as custom types and
attributes.  I really like this idea - we get the best of both worlds.
Most data is normalized and well-designed.  If something additional is
added, no biggie.  Perhaps the XML input would look like this:

<machine>
  <hostname>mookie</hostname>
  <cpu>
    <speed>30GHz</speed>
    <architecture>iJLO</arch>
    <model>Wicked</model>
  </cpu>
  <custom>
    <name>location</name>
    <value>outta sight</value>
  </custom>
  <custom>
    <name>form_factor</name>
    <value>mini_itx</name>
  </custom>
</machine>

quick and dirty.  some of it probablyt needs to be though through a
bit more.  for example, this still doesn't really take into account
"static" fields or tables...

-jkl