Currently I'm trying to select the best DB paradigm to implement a web site with full-text search and faceted search capabilities. I have an important functional requirement:
The database paradigm should support strong conceptual schema modifications during every part of software lifetime.
As a example, our business can pose an extra data item over a registry that should be taken into account in any search. If we use a relational paradigm, this modification requires to alter the database schema (by adding or deleting rows and modifying foreign keys etc.). Obviously, this can lead to maintainability unwanted issues.
- Should we use a document based DB? (i.e. an XML database)
- This problem can be treated as a purely relational conceptual schema design challenge? (i.e. we could design the relational DB having in mind the stated constraint)
- Do you think that this problem should be treated using a specific paradigm?