thrapp@noscvax.UUCP (Gary R. Thrapp) (12/21/84)
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The following is my original request for DBMS information and an
edited summary of the responses I have received. Thank you
very much to everyone that responded. You all have been very helpful.
Gary R. Thrapp
Naval Ocean Systems Center
Code 443
San Diego, CA 92152
(619) 225-7196
MILNET/ARPANET: thrapp@nosc
UUCP: {ihnp4,akgua,decvax,dcdwest,ucbvax}!sdcsvax!noscvax!thrapp
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I am working on a project that requires a database manager
for a test demonstration. I am not very familiar with DBMS's
but these are the what seem to be the requirements:
1. relational database manager.
2. MUST include source code.
3. run under 4.2 BSD, Sun workstations.
4. program callable. do not require query interface.
5. speed of both sequential and random tuple access is
very important.
I would greatly appreciate your recommendations on commercial
or public domain systems. I plan to post a summary article.
Thank you.
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To rephrase the above, you want the source of a high-speed relational
database that works on 4.2 BSD. I do not know what your budget is, (you
do mention "for a test demonstration") but most of the commercial systems
are quite expensive when it comes to getting source. If you do not want
the fancy interfaces and transaction management capabilities, you might
want to try the following commercially available systems:
System Corporation, Address, [Phone number]
-------- --------------------------------------
Mistress Rhodnius Inc., 10 St. Mary Street, Toronto, Ontario,
Canada, M4Y 1P9. [ (416) 922-1743]
Unify Unify Corp., 1111 Howe Avenue, Sacramento, CA 95825.
[ (916) 920-9092 ]
Ingres Relational Technology Inc., 2855 Telegraph Av.,
Berkeley, CA 94705. [ (415) 845-1700 ]
Oracle Oracle Corp., 2710 Sand Hill Rd., Menlo Park, CA 94025.
[ (415) 854-7350 ]
Informix Relational Database Systems, Inc., 2471 Bayshore Rd.,
Suite 600, Palo Alto, CA 94303. [ (415) 424-1300 ]
Rubix Infosystems Techology Inc., 6301 Ivy Lane, Greenbelt,
Maryland 20770. [(301) 345-7800]
Logix Logical Software Inc., 55 Wheeler St., Cambridge,
MA 02138. [ (617) 864-0137 ]
I have used the first three. None of them is very fast at the interactive
query interface. The programming interface I do not know much about. The last
two systems (Rubix and Logix) are quite similar, I believe. In fact, Rubix was
derived from Logix.
The Ingres and Mistress products are based on university research products.
Ingres is based on UCB's Ingres and Mistress is based on Univ. of Toronto's
relational database whose name escapes me. Hope the above information is of
some use.
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What about Unify? It seems to have a lot more of the stuff you want...
I am not saying its perfect, but it seems to fit what you want. It costs
about $6,000 for a binary copy for a VAX though, so you may want to
think about using "dbm" which is free if you don't need all the
fancy stuff that Unify provides (good screen interface and menus).
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I would recommend the Troll/USE database and rapid prototyping system,
available from Prof. Anthony Wasserman at University of California at
Irvine. The software is in the public domain, but there is a private
corporation that will provide support, if needed. I found the Troll
distribution and documentation to be of excellent quality. Announcments
of how to order Troll have appeared in the last 6 months in SIGPLAN
Notices and (I think) the SIGMOD newsletter, as well as having been
posted to the net.
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You might try a company called Rhodnius, in Toronto. They sell a
relational database system called Mistress. They're on the net.
Mistress is a relational database system that has been ported to just about any
UNIX or near-UNIX you care to name. As I don't get a cut of their sales, I'll
leave the sales pitch to them. But they have made at least hundreds of sales
and have been in operation for a few years now, so they're out of the
fly-by-night category.
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I've recently been playing around with a public domain version of INGRES
that probably meets your requirements. It's known around here as
'university INGRES' to distinguish it from the commercial version. Was
written at Berleley, and has a version number of 7.1. We run it on a
VAX that runs BSD 4.2 UNIX. Source is available; you can call it from C
programs; you can store tuples in hashed or ISAM structures and also add
secondary indices, so it ought to run fast (though I can't vouch for
that).
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The message below was posted a while ago on USENET. It might be what
you need. I read detailed descriptions of earlier versions of Troll
and it seemed very simple, clean and efficient (none of the 95% unused
clutter of commercial DBMS systems like Ingres). Of course, there's
nothing like really trying it out...
==============================================
The newest release of the User Software Engineering distribution from
the Section on Medical Information Science at UC San Francisco is now
available. The distribution includes:
1) Troll/USE relational DBMS -- a compact, fully-relational DBMS
with an algebraic interface. Troll/USE supports the following
domain types: integer, float, boolean, fixed and variable
length strings, and enumerated types (scalars). Relation
level operations are select, project, join, and product;
tuple level operations include foreach and cursor management.
Internal storage structure is prefix B-trees. Troll/USE is
quite efficient and compares favorably in performance with
some of the expensive DBMS's (Release 1.2 is about 30% faster
than is Release 1.1)
2) RAPID/USE application development system -- RAPID/USE is used
both as a means for designing and prototyping user interfaces
to alphanumeric displays AND as a way to link the user interface
to programmed actions. RAPID/USE uses a state-transition based
model of user-program interaction as a basis for system
construction. The actions may be programmed with the data
manipulation language of Troll/USE or in C, Fortran 77, or
Pascal. (You can even combine them all in a single system!)
(Release 1.2 provides direct linkage between RAPID/USE and
Troll/USE without use of an intermediate programming language,
as was required in Release 1.1)
3) TBE -- Troll/USE relation browser and editor -- TBE is a
replacement and upgrade for Focus/USE. The name was changed
to avoid confusion with the product of Information Builders,
Inc., which is totally unrelated.
TBE is a low keystroke tool for editing and retrieving
data from a single relation. A major enhancement in TBE
over the previous version is the ability to display relational
data in tabular format. One can also define one's own
commands.
4) Troll/USE library -- a set of routines callable from C and a
similar set of routines callable from Fortran 77 for linking
arbitrary C and FORTRAN 77 programs to the Troll/USE RDBMS.
5) Test jobs and examples
6) Experimental software, not officially part of the USE
distribution, but useful nonetheless. This includes a
version control/configuration management system (IDE) that
stores project information in Troll/USE relations, a
graphic transition diagram editor developed to run on the
Sun Workstation, TIDE, an interactive relation editor
written with RAPID/USE for designing and modifying Troll/USE
relations, etc.
The distribution includes sources, objects (PDP-11 V7 Release 2.9,
VAX 4.1 and 4.2 bsd), and documentation. Documentation includes
reference manuals, tutorials, manual pages, etc., both phototypeset
hardcopy and online versions. Distribution medium is 9-track tar
format tape, 1600 bpi. Handling fee is $300 for everything for a
single machine; $100 for each additional machine. The software
cannot be relicensed under the standard agreement.
As usual, you must sign a license agreement with the University of
California, but your attorneys will find this one less tedious than
the one from Berkeley. In particular, no proof of source license
is required, since this is all application software.
The software is officially unsupported and comes without warranty or
maintenance agreement. We cannot answer lengthy queries or
questionnaires, nor provide extensive free consulting. However,
the price is right...and commercial support is available for those
who need and want it.
To obtain a distribution packet with license agreement, etc., send
E-mail to {ucbvax,ucivax,ucsfcgl}!ucsfmis!waserman or walters.
By USPS,
Prof. Anthony I. Wasserman (or Ms. Tina Walters)
User Software Engineering Distribution
Medical Information Science
Room A-16
University of California, San Francisco
San Francisco, CA 94143 USA
You may also call for a distribution packet: (415) 666-2951.
I will be at Usenix and will have packets and information there, too.
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