It is true that every major DB ventor, SQL or not, is smashing the AI/vector keyword on their front pages. In Elastic for example, their vector capabilities have gone from laughable to respectable in a year. Its a lot simpler to just use one DB instead of many.
But a question for true DB experts here:
1. Is there any real advantage to building a dedicated vector DB from scratch?
2. Is vector DB something that can be just 'tacked on' to a normal DB with no major performance penalties?
We know from history, that data warehouses are genuinely different from databases, and cloud data warehouses are overwhelmingly superior to on-prem ones. So that emerged as a distinct, enduring category with Snowflake/Databricks/Bigquery.
But a question for true DB experts here:
1. Is there any real advantage to building a dedicated vector DB from scratch?
2. Is vector DB something that can be just 'tacked on' to a normal DB with no major performance penalties?
We know from history, that data warehouses are genuinely different from databases, and cloud data warehouses are overwhelmingly superior to on-prem ones. So that emerged as a distinct, enduring category with Snowflake/Databricks/Bigquery.