Network Design

I mentioned that I did database design. From early readings of Codd and Date nearly two decades ago, have spent a professional lifetime grappling with the practical implementations of third normal form relational models and also their "modern" multidimensional variants. The process of mapping real world phenomena to basic binary patterns is to me the single most important factor in the success of any computer system, so it's no surprise that I genuinely enjoy it.

As with the central nervous system of any organism, as with the human brain, as with consciousness itself, it is the pattern of connections that defines its being and purpose - it is the topology of the neural network that determines who we are, not the physical implentation of that pattern. You could lose any nerve in your body, but if that nerve were replaced by an equivalent electrical transmitter with the same trigger and firing mechanism, then your essence would be unchanged, your personality would be unchanged, your thoughts would be unchanged. Every thought that we have is the process of creating new connections.

But as it is topology that counts, on a data model or a tube map or a nervous system, the representation of that network on a two dimensional sheet can be shown in any number of apparently different ways, but so long as the relationship of nodes to connectors is the same then the processing will be the same. It does not matter to the logic of an electrical circuit if the wires are layed out differently. However, where art meets science, it matters to me. Certain patterns of symmetry and chaos are considered more pleasing than others, possibly where those resonate with basic natural patterns. So the "look" of a data model matters - not so much as its topology, but it still matters.

So network design is a massive subject, one that can't really be summarised within brief guidelines. But top five principles of representing network design to follow shortly.

Jeremy Clarkson Data Theft

The most famous motoring writer in England, Jeremy Clarkson tends to elicit extreme opinion. To use the old cliché, you either love him or you hate him. For example, his views on the environment are just selfish denialism but his views on health and safety have much insight, like I recall an assertion that we could greatly reduce traffic accidents if all cars had compulsory airbags that were made of titanium spikes.

Today I learned that JC published a very similar article to one of my recent notes, although I presume that he was paid a lot more for his one. We were both extremely sceptical of the furore surrounding the missing bank details. After all, if you want to help anyone to give you money, to avoid paperwork, a simple way to enable this is to give them your bank account number. Passwords and extra security should only be necessary to withdraw from an account.

Unfortunately, according to an unreferenced Autotrader article sent to me today, JC has been stung. He claims that someone set up a direct debit from his account using only the details printed in his newspaper column.

I believe that a part of Clarkson's argument is typical anti-government ignorance: "The bank cannot find out who did this because of the Data Protection Act and they cannot stop it from happening again." That seems hysterical nonsense.

But if the main thrust of the article is true, then I am worried.

Moving Information

In terms of effort, what is the difference between tactical marketing and loyalty marketing?

When someone is asked to produce a file for a one-off purpose, then the quote returned is often just as small as anyone visualising the information movement would imagine. That is, you pull the data from here, you match it against this, you split it like this, then you move it to there. Easy.

Yet when asked to produce the same file, but supplied regularly, that is often not just a little harder, but sometimes orders of magnitude more difficult. Because the supplier is not being asked to produce a particular product, but instead asked to produce a process. It is the difference between asking for a widget or asking for a widget factory.

But increasingly, as the lost customer data proves, even the one-off request is going to need a full process. The world is going to slow down.

DB

If you are reading this, then you are using a computer, then you are accessing a computer database.

Most people do not "visualise" the route from the keyboard to a physical space on a real disk when they do a search - they just hope to see a symbol on the screen that represents what they are looking for, then expect to click through to what they really want.

But I'm an architect. Sadly, I have not designed bridges or skyscrapers since college days. But I have designed databases. And while the search cursor flashes, I still picture magnetic heads scouring across disk space.

Database principles are not complicated, but data can be stored in many different ways at varying levels of redundancy with various indexing strategies. There are eternal struggles between ease of input and ease of access. Yet ultimately it is just like guiding a little micro-man on a journey around the information store.