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Hierarchal data is a pain to manage and administer but it's main advantage is speed. I've read that there are people out there who have databases so large that RDBMS technology struggles to perform all the overnight processing.

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First of all, the primary function of a database is not speed, but integrity. Second, the relational model can not be blaimed for inefficient implementations of it. Performance is a determined by the physical implementation of a database, the relational model is purely logical.

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I do agree with that.

The best RDBMS system struggles with poorly implemented db design and application design. And that's not a lack of the RDBMS itself.

The relational model is NOT designed to handle hierarchies after all. In fact, it is the successor of the hierarchical model. Designed to get rid of the limitations of the hierarchical database model. It might be true, that the network model or the hierarchical model are faster than the relational, but as Chris has said that is not main focus of a relational db.

As for XML, a classical case of 'It depends...and time will tell'

IMHO, I don't use it, because I see no need to.

Frank

http://www.insidesql.de