Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!mcnc!ecsvax!uncmed!todd!robinson From: robinson@todd.med.unc.edu (Gerard A. Robinson) Newsgroups: comp.databases Subject: Re: DB engine embedded in the OS? (long) Keywords: PICK Message-ID: <501@uncmed.med.unc.edu> Date: 24 Aug 89 22:59:01 GMT References: <8951@blia.BLI.COM> Sender: news@uncmed.med.unc.edu Reply-To: robinson@uncmed.med.unc.edu (Gerard A. Robinson) Distribution: comp Organization: UNC-CH School of Medicine, Office of Information Systems Lines: 28 In article <8951@blia.BLI.COM> miket@blia.BLI.COM (Mike Tossy) writes: >In article , hargrove@harlie.sgi.com (Mark Hargrove) writes: >> >> (Stuff deleted) >> >> One group of vendors (most notably DEC and Tandem) are making very strong >> arguments that most, if not all, of a DB engine should be embedded in the >> operating system. Tandem is basically in the state already; DEC insists >> they will be. Both argue that high performance DB's *require* this approach. >> Hmmm...I'd expect that perhaps *only* for high-performance DBs would one need to do this. But for general system use and general business use one perhaps need only look at the (lack of) penetration that the Pick system (a very nice OS where the file system IS the DB and vice versa) has had in the market. Here's a system that had relational views of data with embedded business rule checking, and other now re-emerging features back in 1978 when I first was exposed to it. It was the basis for Prime's Information and Cosmos (?) PC-DB Revelation. It now is offered in versions layered/embedded in host OSs. But as a combined OS/DB its basically a side stream entity despite is (remembered) niceness. Generally an application mix is what's required by users, and most developers can't afford to gamble on a 'single point of failure' for their livelihood. DEC and TANDEM would argue against this as that's a portion of *their* livelihood. So while the argument might have some technical merit, it is (in my mind) mostly self-serving. After all, both RDB and RMS are layers over the VMS kernel. Gerard Robinson