Conceptual Frameworks

Source: Benjamin Van Vliet and Robert Hendry. Modeling Financial Markets: Using Visual Basic. NET and Databases to Create Pricing, Trading, and Risk Management Models. McGraw-Hill Pub. Co., 2004. [B086]

Narang (2013) provides a wealth of information on the subject:

The first type of database is known as the flat file. Flat files are two-dimensional databases, much like an ordinary spreadsheet. Flat file databases are loved for their leanness, because there is very little baggage or overhead to slow them down. It is a simple file structure that can be searched very easily, usually in a sequential manner (i.e., from the first row of data onward to the last). However, you can easily imagine that searching for a data point near the bottom row of a very large flat file with millions of rows may take rather a long time. To help with this problem, many quants use indexed flat files, which add an extra step but which can make searching large files easier. The index gives the computer a sort of "cheat sheet," providing an algorithm to search large sets of data more intelligently than a sequential search. A second important type of data storage is a relational database. Relational databases allow for more complex relationships among the data set.

More to follow...

Source: Rishi K. Narang. Inside the Black Box: A Simple Guide to Quantitative and High Frequency Trading. John Wiley & Sons, 2013. [B080]