InterBase
InterBase's performance monitor allows database administrators to view and control server use.
Developer:	CodeGear
Latest release:	2007 / 26 September 2006
OS:	Linux, Microsoft Windows and Solaris
Genre:	Database management system
License:	Proprietary
Website:	www.codegear.com/products/interbase

InterBase is a relational database management system (RDBMS) currently developed and marketed by CodeGear. InterBase is distinguished from other DBMSs by its small footprint, close to zero administration requirements, and multi-generational architecture.^[1] InterBase runs on the Linux, Microsoft Windows and Solaris operating systems. Image File history File links InterBase_Performance_Monitor. ... Software development is the translation of a user need or marketing goal into a software product. ... CodeGear is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Borland Software Corporation, which develops software development tools such as the Delphi IDE and programming language and the influential database server InterBase. ... A software release is the distribution, whether public or private, of an initial or new and upgraded version of a computer software product. ... is the 269th day of the year (270th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... // An operating system (OS) is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer. ... This article is about operating systems that use the Linux kernel. ... Windows redirects here. ... Solaris is a computer operating system developed by Sun Microsystems. ... Computer software can be organized into categories based on common function, type, or field of use. ... A database management system (DBMS) is computer software designed for the purpose of managing databases. ... A software license is a legal agreement which may take the form of a proprietary or gratuitous license as well as a memorandum of contract between a producer and a user of computer software. ... It has been suggested that closed source be merged into this article or section. ... A website (alternatively, Web site or web site) is a collection of Web pages, images, videos and other digital assets that is hosted on one or several Web server(s), usually accessible via the Internet, cell phone or a LAN. A Web page is a document, typically written in HTML... A relational database management system (RDBMS) is a database management system (DBMS) that is based on the relational model as introduced by E. F. Codd. ... CodeGear is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Borland Software Corporation, which develops software development tools such as the Delphi IDE and programming language and the influential database server InterBase. ... This article is about operating systems that use the Linux kernel. ... Windows redirects here. ... Solaris is a computer operating system developed by Sun Microsystems. ... // An operating system (OS) is the software that manages the sharing of the resources of a computer. ...

Technology

In many respects, InterBase is quite conventional; it is a SQL-92-compliant relational database and supports standard interfaces such as JDBC, ODBC, and ADO.NET. However, certain technical features distinguish InterBase from other products. SQL (IPA: or IPA: ), commonly expanded as Structured Query Language, is a computer language designed for the retrieval and management of data in relational database management systems, database schema creation and modification, and database object access control management. ... A relational database is a database that conforms to the relational model, and refers to a databases data and schema (the databases structure of how that data is arranged). ... Java Database Connectivity, or JDBC, is an API for the Java programming language that defines how a client may access a database. ... Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard software API for connecting to database management systems (DBMS). ... ADO.NET is a set of computer software components that can be used by programmers to access data and data services. ...

Small footprint

A full InterBase 7 server installation requires around 40 MB on disk. This is significantly smaller than the client installation of many competing database servers. The server uses very little memory when idle. A minimum InterBase client install requires about 400 KB of disk space. ReBoot character, see Megabyte (ReBoot). ... A kilobyte (derived from the SI prefix kilo-, meaning 1000) is a unit of information or computer storage equal to the decimal 1024 bytes (2 to the 10th power, or 1,024 bytes based in the binary system). ...

Minimal administration

InterBase servers typically do not require full-time database administrators. A database administrator (DBA) is a person who is responsible for the environmental aspects of a database. ...

Multi-generational architecture

Concurrency control

Consider a simple banking application where two users have access to the funds in a particular account. Bob reads the account and finds there is 1000 dollars in it, so he withdraws 500. Jane reads the same account before Bob has changed it, sees 1000 dollars, and withdraws 800. The account should be 300 dollars overdrawn, however, depending on which transaction gets processed first it will contain either 500 or 200 dollars. This poses a serious problem and needless to say, any database system with multi-user access needs some sort of system to deal with these scenarios.

The techniques used to solve this and other related problems are known in the database industry as concurrency control. In computer science -- more specifically, in the field of databases -- concurrency control is a method used to ensure that database transactions are executed in a safe manner (i. ...

Traditional products used locks which stated that a particular transaction was going to modify a record. Once the lock was placed, no one else could read or modify the data until the lock was released. The lock may block changes to a single record, a page (a group of records stored together on disk) of records, or every record examined by a particular transaction, depending on the lock resolution. Lock resolution is a tradeoff between performance and accuracy -- by blocking updates at the page level, for example, some updates will be blocked which do not in fact conflict with updates made by other transactions, but performance will be improved in comparison with record level locks. In software engineering, a lock is a mechanism for enforcing limits on access to a resource in an environment where there are many threads of execution. ... A database transaction is a unit of interaction with a database management system or similar system that is treated in a coherent and reliable way independent of other transactions that must be either entirely completed or aborted. ...

Locking becomes an even bigger problem when combined with another feature common to all such systems, transaction isolation. This is because transactions typically involve both a read and a write -- in this example, to read the value of the account and then change it. In order to show an isolated view of the data the entire transaction, including records read but never written to, must be locked in many database servers. For other uses, see Acid (disambiguation). ...

In InterBase, readers do not block writers. Instead, each record in the database can exist in more than one version. For instance, when Bob and Jane read the accounts they would both get "version 1", reading 1000 dollars. When Bob then changes the account to make his withdrawal the data is not overwritten, but instead a new "version 2" will be created with 500 dollars. Jane's attempt to make her 800 dollar withdrawal will notice that there is a new version 2, and her attempt to make a withdrawal will fail.

This approach to concurrency control is called multiversion concurrency control. InterBase's implementation of multiversion concurrency control is commonly called its multi-generational architecture. InterBase was the second commercial database to use this technique; the first was DEC's Rdb/ELN. In computer science, in the field of databases, multiversion concurrency control (abbreviated MCC or MVCC) is a concurrency control method commonly used by database management systems to provide concurrent access to the database. ... The DEC logo Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American company in the computer industry. ...

Multiversion concurrency control also makes true snapshot transaction isolation relatively simple to implement. A transaction with snapshot isolation in InterBase shows the state of the database precisely as it was at the instant the transaction began. This is very useful for backups of an active database, long-running batch processes, and the like. In database systems, isolation is a property that the changes made by an operation are not visible to other simultaneous operations on the system until its completion. ...

Rollbacks and recovery

InterBase also uses its multi-generational architecture to implement rollbacks. Most database servers use logs to implement the rollback feature, which can result in rollbacks taking a long time or possibly even requiring manual intervention. By contrast, InterBase's rollbacks are near-instantaneous and never fail. In database technologies, a rollback is an operation which returns the database to some previous state. ... In in the field of databases in computer science, a database log is a history of actions executed by a database management system. ...

Drawbacks

Certain operations are more difficult to implement in a multi-generational architecture, and hence perform slowly relative to a more traditional implementation. One example is the SQL COUNT verb. Even when an index is available on the column or columns included in the COUNT, all records must be visited in order to see if they are visible under the current transaction isolation.

History

Multiversion concurrency control before InterBase

Multiversion concurrency control is described in some detail in sections 4.3 and 5.5 of the 1981 paper "Concurrency Control in Distributed Database Systems"^[2] by Philip Bernstein and Nathan Goodman -- then employed by the Computer Corporation of America. Bernstein and Goodman's paper cites a 1978 dissertation^[3] by D.P. Reed which quite clearly describes MVCC and claims it as an original work. In computer science, in the field of databases, multiversion concurrency control (abbreviated MCC or MVCC) is a concurrency control method commonly used by database management systems to provide concurrent access to the database. ... Year 1981 (MCMLXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link displays the 1981 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays the 1978 Gregorian calendar). ... In computer science, in the field of databases, multiversion concurrency control (abbreviated MCC or MVCC) is a concurrency control method commonly used by database management systems to provide concurrent access to the database. ...

Early years

Jim Starkey was working at DEC on their Datatrieve network database product when he came up with an idea for a system to manage concurrent changes by many users. The idea dramatically simplified the existing problems of locking which were proving to be a serious problem for the new relational database systems being developed at the time. He started working on the system at DEC, but at the time DEC had just started a relational database effort which lead to the Rdb/VMS product. When they found out about his project a turf war broke out (although the product was released as Rdb/ELN), and Starkey eventually decided to quit. Jim Starkey is a database architect who developed InterBase, the first relational database to support multi-versioning, event alerts, arrays and triggers. ... The DEC logo Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering American company in the computer industry. ... DATATRIEVE is a database query and report writer tool that runs on the HP (formerly Digital) OpenVMS operating system as well as several PDP-11 operating systems. ... A network model database management system has a more flexible structure than the hierarchical model or relational model, but pays for it in processing time and specialization of types. ... A relational database is a database that conforms to the relational model, and refers to a databases data and schema (the databases structure of how that data is arranged). ... Rdb/VMS is a relational database management system (RDBMS) for the Hewlett-Packard OpenVMS operating system. ... Turf war is a term that describes a common problem in larger companies when two divisions fight for access to resources or capital. ...

Although InterBase's implementation is much more similar to the system described by Reed in his MIT dissertation than any other database that existed at the time and Starkey knew Bernstein from his previous position at the Computer Corporation of America and later at DEC, Starkey has stated that he arrived at the idea of multiversion concurrency control independently.^[4] In the same comment, Starkey says: David P. Reed is an American computer scientist, educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, known for a number of significant contributions to computer networking. ... Phil Bernstein is a computer scientist specializing in database research in the Database Group of Microsoft Research. ...

The inspiration for multi-generational concurrency control was a database system done by Prime that supported page level snapshots. The intention of the feature was to give a reader a consistent view of the database without blocking writers. The idea intrigued me as a very useful characteristic of a database system. Prime Computer was a Natick, Massachusetts-based producer of minicomputers from 1972 until 1992. ... In database systems, a consistent transaction is one that does not violate any integrity contraints during its execution. ...

He had heard that the local workstation vendor Apollo Computer was looking for a database offering on their Unix machines, and agreed to fund development. With their encouragement he formed Groton Database Systems (named after the town, Groton, Massachusetts, where they were located) on Labor Day 1984 and started work on what would eventually be released as InterBase in 1986. Apollo suffered a corporate shakeup and decided to exit the software business, but by this time the product was making money. Sun SPARCstation 1+, 25 MHz RISC processor from early 1990s A workstation, such as a Unix workstation, RISC workstation or engineering workstation, is a high-end desktop or deskside microcomputer designed for technical applications. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Filiation of Unix and Unix-like systems Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX®) is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy. ...   Settled: 1655 â€“ Incorporated: 1655 Zip Code(s): 01450 â€“ Area Code(s): 351 / 978 Official website: http://www. ... Labour Day (or Labor Day) is an annual holiday that resulted from efforts of the labour union movement, to celebrate the economic and social achievements of workers. ...

The road to Borland

Between 1986 and 1991 the product was gradually sold to Ashton-Tate, makers of the famous dBASE who were at the time purchasing various database companies in order to fill out their portfolio. The company was soon in trouble[citation needed], and Borland purchased Ashton-Tate in 1991, acquiring InterBase as part of the deal. Ashton-Tate (Ashton-Tate Corporation) was a US based software company best known for developing the popular dBASE database application. ... dBASE III The correct title of this article is dBASE. The initial letter is capitalized because of technical restrictions. ... Borland Software Corporation is a software company headquartered in Austin, Texas. ...

Open source

In early 2000, Borland announced that InterBase would be released under open source, and began negotiations to spin off a separate company to manage the product. When the people who were to run the new company and Borland could not agree on the terms of the separation, InterBase remained a Borland product, and the source code for InterBase version 6 was released under a variant of the Mozilla Public License in mid-2000. Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ... In computing, the Mozilla Public License (MPL) is an open source and free software license. ...

With the InterBase division at Borland under new management, the company released a proprietary version of InterBase version 6 and then 6.5. Borland released several updates to the open source code before announcing that it would no longer actively develop the open source project. Firebird, an open source fork of the InterBase 6 code, however, remains in active development. It has been suggested that closed source be merged into this article or section. ... Firebird (sometimes called FirebirdSQL) is a relational database management system offering many ANSI SQL-2003 features. ... In software, a project fork or branch happens when a developer (or a group of them) takes code from a project and starts to develop independently of the rest. ...

CodeGear

CodeGear is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Borland Software Corporation. On February 8th of 2006, Borland announced the intention to sell their line of development tool products, including InterBase, Delphi, JBuilder, and other tools.[1] But instead of selling the divisions, Borland spun them out as a subsidiary on 14 November 2006. InterBase, along with IDE tools such as Delphi and JBuilder are included in the new company's product lineup. CodeGear is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Borland Software Corporation, which develops software development tools such as the Delphi IDE and programming language and the influential database server InterBase. ... A subsidiary, in business, is an entity that is controlled by another entity. ... Borland Software Corporation is a software company headquartered in Austin, Texas. ... Delphi has been released in many versions, including older versions which have been released in magazines for non-profit application use For the language Borland Delphi is programmed in, see Object Pascal. ... JBuilder is a Java IDE from Borland. ... The common definition of Spin out (or spin off) is when a division of a company or organization becomes an independent business. ... is the 318th day of the year (319th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Delphi has been released in many versions, including older versions which have been released in magazines for non-profit application use For the language Borland Delphi is programmed in, see Object Pascal. ... JBuilder is a Java IDE from Borland. ...

Recent releases

At the end of 2002, Borland released InterBase version 7, featuring support for SMP, enhanced support for monitoring and control of the server by administrators, and more. Borland released InterBase 7.1 in June of 2003, 7.5 in December of 2004, and 7.5.1 on June 1, 2005. Symmetric multiprocessing, or SMP, is a multiprocessor computer architecture where two or more identical processors are connected to a single shared main memory. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 152nd day of the year (153rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In September of 2006, Borland announced^[5] the availability of InterBase 2007. Its new features include point in time recovery via journaling (which also allows recoverability without the performance penalty of synchronous writes), incremental backup, batch statement operations, new Unicode character encodings, and a new ODBC driver. A journaling (or journalling) file system is a file system that logs changes to a journal (usually a circular log in a specially-allocated area) before actually writing them to the main file system. ... An incremental backup is a backup method where multiple backups are kept (not just the last one). ... The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ... A character encoding or character set (sometimes referred to as code page) consists of a code that pairs a sequence of characters from a given set with something else, such as a sequence of natural numbers, octets or electrical pulses, in order to facilitate the storage of text in computers... In computing, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) provides a standard software API method for using database management systems (DBMS). ...

References

1. ^ Todd, Bill. InterBase: What Sets It Apart. The Database Group, Inc. publications. Retrieved on September 21, 2005.
2. ^ Bernstein, Philip A. and Goodman, Nathan. Concurrency Control in Distributed Database Systems. ACM Computing Surveys. Retrieved on September 21, 2005.
3. ^ Reed, D.P.. Naming and Synchronization in a Decentralized Computer System. MIT dissertation. Retrieved on September 21, 2005.
4. ^ Starkey, Jim. Weblog comment. Multiversion Concurrency Control Before InterBase. Retrieved on September 21, 2005.
5. ^ Borland’s Developer Tools Group Introduces InterBase® 2007

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External links

• InterBase product page