When no article on Slashdot could stand for 13 days without a single comment...

I find it hard to believe that they would have shut down the Wifi simply because of a *possible* lawsuit.... Maybe they didn't really want the WiFi after all?

There's something to be said for using the right tool for the job. A general purpose database will be optimized for the general case, not for your specific problem. Large databases spanning multiple servers, taking extreme traffic, are sufficiently outside the scope of normal database operations, that a custom solution can be the only way to do it.

I suggest:

* figure out exactly what needs to be solved
* check if existing solutions solve it
* if not, then develop a solution (and if you're in Canada, claim IRAP and SR&ED for it ;-) )

Reasons why my suggestion would not always work:

* risk, both financial and project
* skills bias (preference to change the problem to match what skills are available)
* technology bias (preference to change the problem to match a specific technology)
* vendor bias (preference to change the problem to match a specific vendor)

As an executive and a system administrator:

- timesheets
- list of tasks done
- list of tasks outstanding

That's it.