Using SharePoint lists as a relational database

Question

_{Tuesday, January 25, 2011 9:39 AM}

Hi all,

What are all the pros and cons you can think of for using SP Lists as a relational database for your .NET over SharePoint application? I am still relatively new to SharePoint but I already read something about performance degradation. on the other hand, i heared also that SharePoint 2010, which I use, is much better in this regard than MOSS. I am reading that a SharePoint list can take up to 30,000,000 items but don't know when the performance will start to degrade and any mitigations in the future I can use.

Some folks mentioned that performance will start to degrade after the list is filled with a few thousands of items. Is that real from your experience?

Thanks and appreciating any help

Hammoudeh Ahmad

All replies (2)

_{Tuesday, January 25, 2011 10:27 AM ✅Answered}

Hi,

do not see SharePoint as a relational database alternative. On the other side, SharePoint 2010 provides you some enhanced functionalities on the lookup values and list capacity.

Usually, the performance depends on the operations that you are executing. You can have thousands of items in a list without bigger issues. It simply depends on how you are rendering out your contents (with a SharePoint view) and which operations you execute there. More data is involved to render the results as they are expected, more you will notice the degradation. This is like that in SharePoint, but you have the same issue also in relational databases. 

That means that probably you will notice a performance degradation where somebody else does not.

br,

patrick

follow my blog http://patrick.lamber.blogspot.com to get additional tips and information about SharePoint, Project and ASP.NET

_{Tuesday, January 25, 2011 4:36 PM ✅Answered}

SharePoint Lists ultimately utilizes database to store its content so you should be asking your self why you want to go this indirect way and not use database in the first place. If you are using SharePoint List features like workflow, version etc then it make sense as then List is saving your time (as you don't have to develop this functionality from scratch) and fulfilling your requirements. In a nut shell SharePoint Lists are not meant to be a real replacement of database.

Plus its quite hard to comment on performance which is a relative term and depends on your specific metric. I suggest if you have a specific scenario please share  its details with us, otherwise perhaps it would be better to create a  discussion on this topic if its not already exists.

Microsoft SharePoint MVP |http://razirais.wordpress.com| MCT| MCPD SharePoint 2010 Developer| MCITP SharePoint Administrator 2010