The Caché Unified Data Architecture uniquely enables developers to utilize information, both as object classes, and as SQL tables, based on a single definition. It also smoothes the transition to object development and enables developers to work with information in the most optimal manner for each application.

"Java’s strength is the ability to write an application just once and deploy it on virtually any platform," notes Keith Hagen, chief technology officer at The Compucare Company. "The Unified Data Architecture makes it possible to take the same approach to data…define it once, use it in relational and/or object applications. This supports close integration between object technology and legacy SQL-based applications and data." Based in Reston, VA, The Compucare Company, which develops and markets the comprehensive Affinity healthcare information system, is a beta user of Caché Object Server.

The "define once, use anywhere" capability is part of an architecture that provides high-performance support for relational, as well as object applications. Fundamentally, other vendors’ object/relational databases provide limited object capabilities in a separate architectural layer; an approach that has a significant negative impact on performance. Caché, in contrast, provides full object technology features and a transactional database engine in a post-relational architecture that supports high-performance OLTP.

Direct interconnectivity between Caché Objects and the Caché transactional database engine results in high-performance object applications. And, the Caché architecture removes the need to go through an object layer when accessing data relationally, enabling high performance for legacy relational applications. Caché SQL has, in fact, been benchmarked to run three times faster than legacy relational database systems.