Hi Erin,

Honestly both databases will do the job just fine. I personally prefer Postgres.

Much more important is how you store the audio. While you could technically use a blob type column, it's really not ideal to be storing audio files which are "several hours long" in a database row. Instead consider storing the audio files in an object store (hosted options include backblaze b2 or aws s3) and persisting the key (which references that object) in your database column.

Hi Erin, Chances are you would want to store the files in a blob type. Both MySQL and Postgres support this. Can you explain a little more about your need to store the files in the database? I may be more effective to store the files on a file system or something like S3. To answer your qustion based on what you are descibing I would slighly lean towards PostgreSQL since it tends to be a little better on the data warehousing side.

Hi Erin! First of all, you'd probably want to go with a managed service. Don't spin up your own MySQL installation on your own Linux box. If you are on AWS, thet have different offerings for database services. Standard RDS vs. Aurora. Aurora would be my preferred choice given the benefits it offers, storage optimizations it comes with... etc. Such managed services easily allow you to apply new security patches and upgrades, set up backups, replication... etc. Doing this on your own would either be risky, inefficient, or you might just give up. As far as which database to chose, you'll have the choice between Postgresql, MySQL, Maria DB, SQL Server... etc. I personally would recommend MySQL (latest version available), as the official tooling for it (MySQL Workbench) is great, stable, and moreover free. Other database services exist, I'd recommend you also explore Dynamo DB.

Regardless, you'd certainly only keep high-level records, meta data in Database, and the actual files, most-likely in S3, so that you can keep all options open in terms of what you'll do with them.

Hey Erin! I would recommend checking out Directus before you start work on building your own app for them. I just stumbled upon it, and so far extremely happy with the functionalities. If your client is just looking for a simple web app for their own data, then Directus may be a great option. It offers "database mirroring", so that you can connect it to any database and set up functionality around it!

Hi Erin,

• Coming from "Big" DB engines, such as Oracle or MSSQL, go for PostgreSQL. You'll get all the features you need with PostgreSQL.
• Your case seems to point to a "NoSQL" or Document Database use case. Since you get covered on this with PostgreSQL which achieves excellent performances on JSON based objects, this is a second reason to choose PostgreSQL. MongoDB might be an excellent option as well if you need "sharding" and excellent map-reduce mechanisms for very massive data sets. You really should investigate the NoSQL option for your use case.
• Starting with AWS Aurora is an excellent advise. since "vendor lock-in" is limited, but I did not check for JSON based object / NoSQL features.
• If you stick to Linux server, the PostgreSQL or MySQL provided with your distribution are straightforward to install (i.e. apt install postgresql). For PostgreSQL, make sure you're comfortable with the pg_hba.conf, especially for IP restrictions & accesses.

Regards,

I recommend Postgres as well. Superior performance overall and a more robust architecture.

As others have noted, MySQL Workbench cannot be used instead of Microsoft SQL Manager to manage Azure SQL (MS-SQL Server, I hate that Microsoft uses generic category names for their products).

If you're considering switching to MySQL (Possibly using Azure MySQL managed database), then please not that unlike MS-SQL Server, you do not need the MySQL Workbench to connect your application to MysQL: just use the correct driver for your stack, and you're all set (if your stack is using the .Net platform, use MySQL Connector/NET from: https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/net/ ).

If you do want to use a graphical interface to maintain your MySQL database, then MySQL Workbench is a great choice, but you are not limited to it - as others have mentioned, there is a plethora of competing graphical database management tools that would work just as well with MySQL - one of the advantages of choosing MySQL for your stack is the huge eco-system that is built around it.

As far as I know, MySQL Workbench doesn't handle Microsoft connections, including Azure, you should try Microsoft solutions such as MS VS Code.

Hello Could you give us a better idea of what Data Base Management System (DBMS) you are using at Azure? MySQL Workbench and Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) are tools developed to exclusively manage MySQL and SQL Server, respectively. If you need to manage multiple DBMS's from a single tool, I sugget you try DBeaver. There are also another alternatives: HeidiSQL, phpMyAdmin, etc. Regarding the DBMS itself, I suggest you stick with SQL Server. In my opinion it's more stable and has more features than MySQL - especially in the Standard and Enterprise editions. Regards, Lawrence

Hi Aashwiin, Looking at your stack (https://stackshare.io/aashwiin82347/my-stack), it seems you are using Azure SQL Databases. I'll infer this is Microsoft SQL Server. Therefore, it certainly makes sense you stick with some of the official Microsoft Tooling to connect to it, query and administer it. You'd only be looking at MySQL Query Workbench, if you were running and connecting to a MySQL Database. - That said, could Azure MySQL (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/mysql/overview) be an option for you a this point? MySQL offers great performance. I have been running it at various companies (under AWS/RDS and AWS/Aurora) and have no reason to switch over to anything else. - Decision making-wise, how much do your want your local sql/mysql client to influence/weigh in your architecture/technology decisions, though? This can be a slippery slope. - Alternatively, other clients exist, such as "Table Plus" and allow you to connect, on Mac, to a variety of database servers, including SQL Server. It might be worth giving it a try.

Microsoft provides an application known as Azure Data Studio that runs on Windows, Mac and Linux machines. It provides the ability to manage an Azure SQL database, as well as connecting to standard SQL Server databases. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/azure-data-studio/what-is?view=sql-server-ver15