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> And random primary keys (or any key really, and even more so for clustered indexes PK) really trash a db cache and locking systems.

That sounds like a problem which should be solved by making database engines not assume keys have some sane ordering, not by putting timestamps in UUIDs.



This is mostly correct but primary keys have to co-exist with the existing data infrastructure that is unlikely to be replaced for decades.

It is quite possible to do cluster-style indexing on UUIDs through disk on a single server at rates of tens of millions per second, I do it every day, just not with your typical ordered-tree architectures. Many popular database engines are not designed to make this particular scenario perform well.




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