LINUX TIPS AND TRICKS --- December 22, 2000

Published by ITworld.com, the IT problem-solving network
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Linux Databases Part II
By Danny Kalev

Last week's Linux RDBMS overview left out several tools and many 
readers quickly asked why certain RDBMS weren't listed. Space limit is 
one reason and I also have to admit I'm not familiar with each and 
every RDBMS around -- particularly those started on other platforms and 
were ported to Linux only recently. This week I will try to make amends 
and discuss four more RDBMS tools. Another issue, referring to my 
statements that some RDBMS weren't suitable for large databases, has 
been raised asking, "How large is large?" Lacking an industry 
standard , common agreement dictates a large database contains more 
than 4 GB of data or more than 4 GB of records -- 4 GB is the upper 
limit of 32-bit integers and pointers. An RDBMS capable of storing 
larger amounts of data are designed very differently from medium size 
or desktop databases, and thus requires sophisticated storage and 
lookup algorithms. Most Open Source products are still limited in this 
regard. Now back to our overview.

Mini-SQL                 www.Hughes.com.au/products/msql/
Mini-SQL, or mSQL (not to be confused with MySQL), is a lightweight 
RDBMS capable of providing rapid data access with little overhead. The 
licensing policy is somewhat vague, but it's free for non-commercial 
users.

    Pros: Compact, low resource usage
    Cons: Unsuitable for large systems

uniVerse                
www.informix.com/informix/products/servers/universe
Informix recently purchased the uniVerse RDBMS. uniVerse supports many 
important standards and environments, e.g., ANSI SQL92, SQL3, ODBC, 
Perl, etc.... Scalable, reliable, and easy to maintain,. uniVerse can 
be accessed through various languages and tools. 

    Pros: Internationalized, resource efficient
    Cons: Expensive, overkill for small databases

Interbase                www.borland.com/interbase/
Borland released the source code and binaries of its vintage Interbase 
RDBMS about a year ago. Interbase supports large databases (up to 32 
Terabytes) and complies with the SQL92 and Unicode standards. It 
offers "Event Alerters", a unique feature that similar to traditional 
triggers, automatically notifies interested parties when specific 
changes occur in the database.

    Pros: Open Source, supports triggers, multidimensional arrays and 
          BLOBS
    Cons: Linux support is still crude

Kdb              www.kx.com/products/index.html
Kdb offers outstanding processing speed (according to KX -- one million 
updates per second) due to a unique architecture of "inverted" tables, 
i.e. storing data together in each column, instead of the row 
orientation used by other RDMS. Kdb is free for non-commercial users.

    Pros: Extremely fast, very concise, in-memory database
    Cons: Unique design that dictates oddities, e.g., proprietary 
          languages


About the author(s)
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Danny Kalev is a system analyst and software engineer with more than 10 
years of experience, specializing in C++ and object-oriented analysis 
and design on various platforms including VMS, DOS, Windows, Unix, and 
Linux. His technical interests involve code optimization, networking, 
and distributed computing. He is also a member of the ANSI C++ 
standardization committee and the author of ANSI/ISO C++ Professional 
Programmer's Handbook (Que, 1999). Contact him at linuxnl@excite.com. 

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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Is theKompany.com a moneymaker? 
Is a hybrid open source market the key?

http://www.itworld.com/jlw/lintps_nl/lw-2000-12/lw-12-thekompany.html

Open source databases establishing footholds 
Vendors working to enhance performance, add new features

http://www.itworld.com/jitw/lintps_nl/cma/ett_article_frame/
0,2848,1_3754,00.html

How to get Oracle up and running on your Linux box 
A practical guide to basic installation and use

http://www.itworld.com/jlw/lintps_nl/lw-1999-06/lw-06-oracle.html

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COMMUNITY DISCUSSIONS

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Linux is making its presence felt on the desktop, but is it stable and 
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