Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!amdahl!rtech!davek
From: davek@rtech.rtech.com (Dave Kellogg)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: DB engine embedded in the OS?
Message-ID: <3475@rtech.rtech.com>
Date: 28 Aug 89 07:46:10 GMT
References: <12003@joshua.athertn.Atherton.COM>
Reply-To: davek@rtech.UUCP (Dave Kellogg)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Relational Technology Inc, Alameda CA
Lines: 36

In article <12003@joshua.athertn.Atherton.COM> joshua@atherton.com (Flame Bait) writes:
>>>> [Basic topic:]
>>>> 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.  
>
>Buying an DBMS embedded in a propriatery operating system like DEC's or
>Tandem's is making a faustian deal with the devil:


I think this debate with respect to systems like Rdb is somewhat off the mark.
While I can't speak about Britton-Lee systems, I can say that Rdb is certainly
not "embedded" into the VMS operating system.  "Bundled" would be a better
term-- that is, when you *buy* VAX/VMS you get some kind of runtime Rdb license.
However, this is not to say that Rdb itself is part of the VMS executive.

Rdb, until recently at least, was a "layered product."  Just because DEC may
now be selling it with VAX/VMS, it doesn't mean that any major technical
changes occurred behind the scenes.  In my opinion, Rdb is about as "embedded"
in VAX/VMS as is any third-party DBMS.

Server-based systems, on the other hand, like INGRES or even Sybase are not 
embedded in the operating system either.  They are, in fact, bypassing or 
replacing certain parts of it-- like memory management or scheduling.
Techno-wise it's not "embedding the DBMS into the OS, it's embedding an OS
subset into the DBMS."  Marketing-wise it's simply "buy this, and this comes 
along free/cheap."  There is a difference.

None of the examples I've seen in this debate that I know of (Rdb, Oracle,
Sybase or INGRES) are in any way "embedded" in the operating system.  The 
simple issue is replace things like memory management and scheduling or don't.


Dave Kellogg

# include disclaimer.h