Understanding software design to handle volume data

Kishore C.S. (May 2001)  

The following are a few observations I had after living in US. I never understood this before. In light of this, I feel this 'understanding' can alter the seriousness with which you do the software design can change.

Volume of Data

In Indian business scenario where small businesses exist in millions, the number of unique business companies is less. In India may have more than 100 registered chain of departmental stores with 5-10 across cities. Contrary to that in US you will have 5-10 types of Grocery stores that will have more than 10 outlets in each city. This just changes the whole scenario.

For example take a chain of Department Stores by name: GANESH STORES which has 3 shops in Hyderabad, 5 in Bombay and 6 in Delhi. These stores still operate independently and a software that is used in each store need not be integrate.

Assuming each store sells average of 50 items to 500 customers per day, volume of transactional data would be 350000 per day.

A software developed in India for a grocery store would cater to less volume of data.

Take a Store by Name in US: GROCERIES INC

In US because a single grocery store can have thousands of branches across the country, they need an supporting software to track each store, measure profitability across states etc.

Each state can have 100 stores. If we assume same sales volume, still the volume of data would be 125000000 per day.

Software in US always needs to be designed for high volume of data. Tested for performance.

The software also needs to provide a smooth installation that allows installation at all these locations in a shorter time period.

In simple terms the volumes that need to be handled by software used in US is quite different than one can ever imagine just knowing about Indian business scenario.

Summary

Use this simple illustration to impress upon the design team the need for defining architecture that will be scalable. If you are doing a project for a US company, understanding volumes of data that would be processed is most critical process in design. Understanding this would mean a lot to the way design of software from database schema to UI design will be done. Take advantage of this simple understanding.