According to Wikipedia, Amazon's Redshift is a modified version of Postgres.
Maybe its speed redshifted data integrity into a bloody mess.

It has no primary keys, foreign keys or unique constraints. It just has optimizer hints in the DDL that *maybe* the data behaves that way. If they want to put hints in the DDL, OK, but don't call those hint PRIMARY KEY, FOREIGN KEY or UNIQUE.
--Unsupported PostgreSQL Features - Amazon Redshift

I don't think any version of Postgres lets you say Create Table Foo (Bar Int PRIMARY KEY) and then let you do

INSERT INTO Foo (BAR) Values (42)
INSERT INTO Foo (BAR) Values (42)
INSERT INTO Foo (BAR) Values (42)

That might be fine for a one time only static data warehouse, but an ongoing data update system is going to break the integrity rules, it is just a matter of time. That would make for some surprises when someone decides to migrate their data and lots of application code from a relational DBMS to Redshift.
--Jeff Winchell

1. Quote of the Week

The entire Information Technology industry is still stuck in 1971 with Dr. Codd's 3rd Normal form ... when 3 more exist and now a 7th or (N) Normal Form ... Dr. Codd, created, devised, extrapolated 6 forms of Data NORMALIZATION, and after 45 years (1971), every single Database system or information management system to date has not exceeded the 3rd normal Form... except AtomicDB, (N) Normal Form improving on Dr. Codd's work by 4 levels(dimensions)at the very least ... There was and is a method to his theory, that with each level of Normalization brings a geometric increase in "Efficiency" and scalability, however, no one has even attempted the restrictions of the 4th normal form (no duplicates) let alone the 5th or 6th, and now with Dr. Everett’s (N)th Normal form, we can do anything the human mind can devise on a computer and in nearly real time. --Jean Michel LeTennier, CTO, Atomic Database Corp.

One other intriguing benefit of NoSQL that I started to unwitting benefit from recently is the ability to push data scheme concerns entirely to the application layer. In this scenario, the applications use a NoSQL database predominantly as a storage service, lightly structured by a few indexed key fields. The object structured data document within the payload becomes transparent to the database. The applications then assume the role of enforcing and understanding the data scheme.

This approach allows the application architect to encode the data structures and meaning directly in the code that creates and consumes the data. So data structure changes required for functional updates can be implemented, tested, and deployed in the application code base with no updates to the database layer at all. (Of course, a conversion of existing NoSQL data documents may be required in situations.)

In this NoSQL approach, the removed translation of object data scheme to a relational structure and, and then back to an object structure again is a very welcome relief as well. --use-the-index-luke.com

• Needing A Database Design Book
• The database curmudgeon speaks again

RAQUEL

After attending NoSQL conference I am really hoping that companies think through this 'big data' implementation! No one there was interested in Data model ... and said so ... forget the data model ... even 'standards' were looked at 'its 'too early' for this new technology ... and no one could tell us anything about 'meta-data'...!!!!! --LinkedIn.com

The Principle of Orthogonal Database Design Part I

The ER notation consists a set of constructs, such as, a rectangle to represent an entity types, an ellipse to represent an attribute a diamond to represent a relationship type, and so on. The RDS is a set of linear relation schemas. A relation schema has a name and is a sequence of attributes of text separated by comas and arranged horizontal. I have also developed an ER-to relational transformation algorithm to transform an ER schema to its corresponding RDS. I wish to implement this project as a CASE tool. --LinkedIn.com

The First Normal Form in Theory and Practice, Part  I

• Why is it so hard to get SQL performance right the first time
• Why Are There No Relational DBMS's
• SchemeUnit and SchemeQL: Two Little Languages 

"The real definition of Big Data?? Simple: Whatever does not fit in Excel!"

Me: What is--precisely, pls!--the threshold from small to big data? And how do the structural, manipulative and integrity aspects change over the threshold?

HM: Big data := the smallest set of data for which the sensitivity of your transfer function is minimal, and such that the cardinality of this set is too large to implement said transfer function on a single physical machine.Transfer function := though not strictly a function, as in the Lambda calculus, it is more of an operator which ingests data of any size and produces a monetizeable product or service. Sensitivity := the degree to which a perturbation on the input into a transfer function affects the result produced by said function.

Me: Ugh! I'm sure that's exactly what all the overnight data scientists, including those who invented Big Data, had in mind.--LinkedIn.com

C: As a non-CS grad coming fresh to databases, I found both the entity-relationship, and the object-oriented models confusing. Then I read Date [1] and Codd's [2] books and papers on the relational model, the one from the 1970s that is basically set and type theory applied to data, and found that to be a lot clearer and a more powerful abstraction to deal with your data model. As a non-"full time developer" it amazes me the number of "experienced" developers who are not aware of the relational model and who do not know what a foreign key is, or why referential integrity might be important.

For example, your Relational Model introduction has a discussion of various data types. But arguably, whether your integer is implemented as BIGINT or TINYINT is an implementation decision which should be separate from the model discussion (dixit Date). In other words, that attribute has a type of integer and how that integer is stored is a separate issue, and your RDBMS ought to abstract it away (as, I think, Postgres is pretty good with, and MySQL quite annoying). The beauty of the latest RDBMS developments, particularly in PostgreSQL world, is that the implementation has gotten so good that you don't need to really worry about it like you used to just a decade ago, at least in 95% of use cases.

I think one can teach SQL (and the relational model) to a non-developer in about 2 hours, because it is so declarative and intuitive. One day I'll go write that tutorial, as many clients need it sorely.

• Find the Supplier number for those suppliers who supply every part
• Why is it so hard to get SQL performance right the first time

... the challenges inherent in the SQL RDBMS [sic] approach ... the constrained schema (or schema-first) approach of SQL RDBMS engines imposes semantic infidelity rather than fidelity on all applications and services that depend on this RDBMS type, solely ... SQL RDBMS engines (as per what I've outlined above) do impose a "one size fits all" constraint on DBMS driven apps and services that manifests as the "data variety issue" outlined by the "Big Data" meme.
--LinkedIn.com

Understanding Codd's 12 Rules for RDBMS

The Real Data Science: Tables--So What?

You see, in Cassandra 1.x, the data model is centered around what Cassandra calls “column families”. A column family contains rows, which are identified by a row key. The row key is what you need to fetch the data from the row. The row can then have one or more columns, each of which has a name, value, and timestamp. (A value is also called a “cell”). Cassandra’s data model flexibility comes from the following facts:
* column names are defined per-row
* rows can be “wide” — that is, have hundreds, thousands, or even millions of columns
* columns can be sorted, and ranges of ordered columns can be selected efficiently using “slices”.
--http://blog.parsely.com/post/1928/cass/

• Database Design is Easy — Or Is It?
• 4 Reasons Why the Database Is Your #1 Bottleneck to Agile Development
• Basic Rules of Cassandra Data Modeling

• Is There a Closed Model Of the World Premise?
• The Folk Model is Real - The Universal Model is the Fiction

• 10 Common Design Mistakes
• Entity Relationship Problem

The First Normal Form in Theory and Practice Part I

The Real Data Science: Tables--So What?

[Do] formalized languages need the definition of data types? Up to now I have not read strong arguments against my statement that for interpretation and operation on data the use of character strings is sufficient when

• All data are expressed as character strings that are explicitly based in language communities, whereas the character strings denote concepts that are represented by UID's;
• The denoted concepts are defined by their supertype concepts (among others);
• Collections of allowed qualitative concepts (that are denoted by string values or value ranges) are defined to enable the specification of constraints; --LinkedIn.com

• There is no Such Thing as Object-Relational Impedance Mismatch
• SQL for Beginners in a Nutshell [Infographic]

• Orthodoxy versus the Data Management Reformation
• Back to Basics
• How to enforce a constraint over multiple tables

• Query Optimization
• Relational Algebra
• LEAP RDBMS
• Relational
• Relational Algebra Translator
• System for Translating Relational Algebra Scripts into Microsoft SQL Server SQL Scripts
• System for Translating Relational Algebra Scripts into Oracle SQL Scripts

• The Case For Teaching Ignorance
• Tech nightmares that keep Turing Award winners up at night 
• New @The PostWest

The Real Data Science: Tables -- So What? 

• The Real Data Science
• Relations and databases
• 5NF R-tables
• "Table arithmetic"
• RDM and SQL

Later, as use of RDBMS became more widespread, the complexity associated with design of a RDBMS was also well documented ... The associative database model is claimed to offer advantages over RDBMS ... “two fundamental data structures” as “„Items‟ and a set of „Links‟ that connect them together ... Items, which have "a unique identifier, a name and a type” and Links, which have “a unique identifier, together with the unique identifiers of three other things, that represent the source, verb and target of a fact that is recorded about the source in the database ... “each of the three things identified by the source, verb and target may each be either a link or an item.”
--Homan, J. V. and Kovacs, P. J., A Comparison of the Relational Database Model and the Associative Database Model, Issues in Informtion Systems, Vol. X, No. 1, 2009.

A Comparison of the Relational Database Model and the Associative Database Model

• Are our Universities teaching students how to address real world data challenges?
• Reductionism Data Mgmt. by Inertia ...or by Choice

Why Domain Expertise is More Important than Algorithms

I am designing a mySQL database. I created tables and added extra columns for future use. Will it affect performance?
--LinkedIn.com

Why you should never, ever, ever use MongoDB

Fixing 7 common database design errors

Amazon's MySQL database challenger Aurora exits preview

The First Normal Form in Theory and Practice, Part I

• New Appendix to paper #3: While working on my book, I collected all comments by readers and replies by me (edited) and David McGoveran and added them as Appendix B. It further clarifies some of the aspects of the proposed relational/2VL solution to missing data. Those who ordered the paper in 2014 and 2015 should email me for a copy.

• Added to LINKS page: 

Why even the most intelligent software architects don't understand the Relational Model

In 15-20 years from now: Information will stay only in XML (no more tuples, no more objects). Imperative languages as we know them today (Java, C, C++, C#) will be gone. We will program with some extension of XQuery, or in any case a declarative dataflow/workflow language specially --Daniela Florescu, 2010 Interview

Exactly 20 years ago I wrote this article: "Storing and Querying XML Data using an RDMBS". I curse myself every day for doing so. I should be damned by the fires of hell for ever opening my mouth and letting people believe that one can REASONABLY use SQL to query hierarchical, complex structures like XML or JSON.  NO, PEOPLE. YOU CAN NOT! --Daniela Florescu, 2015, LinkedIn.com

SQL Will Inevitably Come To NoSQL Databases

Data Scientists: The talent crunch (that isn't)

• What ORMs have taught me: just learn SQL
• What’s left of NoSQL?
• Complicating a metaphor
• Data Scientists are bullies that need a guiding hand

Read it all. (Please comment there, not here)

"... web apps ushered in a new model for development and distributed systems that ... [r]elational databases are fundamentally ill suited to handle ... Their master-slave architectures, methods for writing and reading data, and data distribution mechanisms simply cannot meet the key requirements of modern web, mobile and IoT applications. I tell you that not as an employee of a NoSQL company, but as a guy who has worked with RDBMS’s for over twenty-five years. In short, you simply can’t get there from here where relational technology is concerned, and that’s why NoSQL must be used for the applications we’re talking about.

My feeling is that the field of NoSQL was created EXACTLY so the data should not be normalized like in relational databases--which has the disadvantages that data needed for real time/online applications needed to be joined at runtime before being used by the application. Under the time constraints of an online system, this is unacceptable. Hence, application developers want to store persistently the data EXACTLY in the way application see it: pre-aggregated, potentially inconsistent, and potentially replicated. Bottom line, there is no "rule" of how you should store the data. Just look at your application needs. Not everyone has the same requirements as iTunes or Netflix, so you don't need to copy their design.
...
If this is a question for you... maybe you shouldn't be using a NoSQL database in the first place !? Why do you think you need one and good old relational databases aren't good for you? Just because it's "fashionable" ? My point is: if you knew exactly WHY you need a NoSQL database, you knew EXACTLY how to structure your data for it.
--LinkedIn.com

Data Modeling in NoSQL

• Something Does not Make Sense  
• Help us define data scientist for a kid

• What's the Harm In a Default Setting For Div By Zero  
• Enterprise financials in the cloud: Why the fog of skepticism may be lifting

• Extending the relational algebra to capture less meaning (h/t Erwin Smout)
• Thinking for Programmers (h/t William Sisson)

... a systemic problem that perpetuates itself without a solution and worsens rather than improves, particularly with Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft getting involved in the school and academic systems.

...the San Francisco School Board unanimously voted Tuesday to ensure every student in the district gets a computer science education, with coursework offered in every grade from preschool through high school, a first for a public school district. Tech companies, including Salesforce.com, as well as foundations and community groups, are expected to pitch in funding and other technical support to create the new coursework, equip schools and train staff to teach it.

My son, who is a sophomore in high school, had a class in Microsoft Excel and Access this semester. This "class" was created and delivered online, in the classroom, by Microsoft for the school systems. His "instructor" is a baseball coach. Anyway, he asked me for some help with a portion of the Access module on queries. The "lesson," a set of step by step instructions with no explanations, instructs the student to use the "find duplicates" query wizard. Directly following that was the "find unmatched" (meaning in their terms rows in one table that should also be in another table but are not) query wizard. This is yet another example proving your point.

Small Data - Too many relationships spoil the model...

Something doesn't make sense

How to interview an Oracle DBA candidate (NOT)

JG:  fell asleep dreaming of column constraints. I woke up thinking of foreign keys. I've been married to MySQL for so long that I had no idea all of these other things were possible!

Using a database and not knowing about foreign keys? My immediate reaction was to be astounded. However, he just happens to have begun with the least-robust database product on the market, and his learning is (evidently) confined to whatever product he happens to be using.

In this paper we briefly review some of these issues and then concentrate on the problem of generalizing the formal framework of the relational data model to include null values. A basic problem with null values is that they have many plausible interpretations.
--Database Relations with Null Values, Bell Labs, 1983

Relational table naming convention

• Comments on "Table Constraints and Data Science"
• Comments on "1NF, Part 3: The Domain Imperative"
• Enterprise Data Modelling

• Why even the most intelligent software architects don't understand the Relational Model
• Obfuscated SQL Contest Winners! (h/t Todd Everett)

• Those who ordered in 2015 get free copies.
• Those who ordered in 2014 get a 50% discount.

He started his SQL Server career when he debuted as an accidental DBA in 2005.  Seeing Reporting Services 2005 demoed for the first time sealed the deal, and it has been all data ever since, leaving the worlds of networking and systems admin behind. After being a full-time dev/operational DBA with everything since SQL 2000, he is now back to BI, as a Senior BI Engineer/Consultant. --Online Bio

• Relational table naming convention
• Database relationships
• Actions & Facts Revisited
• Null employee's proper surnameBasing Database Models in Reality A Blogger’s Challenge

• Experience Means Little Without Product Knowledge
• Comments on First Normal Form, Part 3

Obfuscated SQL Contest Winners!

• A WRITINGS page documenting almost all of my published print and online writings;
• A link to my Amazon author page  to FUNDAMENTALS on HOME page;
• A link to database References page @Teradata website to the LINKS page.

I am new to this domain. Please guide me to choose which database to choose among the NOSQL databases. Also which OS the database supports and how to add data to the database(which language). The requirement is to store pictures and alpha numeric s in database. A web server would be designed to extract data from the database and display in web application. The important requirement is scalability so I explored and found that NoSQL database will best fit the requirement. --LinkedIn.com

Docbase, Graphbase, Colubase, Triplestore ,which better fo RDF triples

• Comments on Stonebraker Interview
• Understanding the differences between transactional and analytical database design 

• Concerns of an Artificial Intelligence Pioneer
• Anthropomorphism Gone Wrong Poor Motivating Example for OOP 

"... the Ingres database [sic] brought Codd’s lofty relational ideas into the realm of ordinary individuals ... turned [them] into constructs that could be manipulated by ordinary people ... it was argued at the time that RDBMS couldn’t perform, but we showed it could be efficient."

"What Ted proposed was radical ... a complete change from how things were being done in database [sic] ... he turned the problem of data management into one of relations. That dramatically simplified things ... The conventional wisdom was that you should build for the particulars of how the data is stored. He saw that made no sense ... he [moved] the actual manipulation of data away from assembly language programming of the time to higher levels of abstraction that would later become structured query language, or SQL ... He brought principles of encapsulation and abstraction to programming databases, like with a high-level-language in programming."