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From: forrest@blia.BLI.COM (Jon Forrest)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Database Machines (was: minor plug for Britton Lee)
Message-ID: <2733@blia.BLI.COM>
Date: Fri, 29-May-87 15:33:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: blia.2733
Posted: Fri May 29 15:33:09 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 31-May-87 14:38:13 EDT
References: <2700@blia.BLI.COM> <851@rtech.UUCP> <2042@utah-gr.UUCP> <863@rtech.UUCP>
Organization: Britton Lee, Berkeley, CA
Lines: 50

In article <863@rtech.UUCP>, jas@rtech.UUCP (Jim Shankland) writes:
> Thought I'd post a few thoughts on database machines to try to move the
> discussion away from the meta-topic of what constitutes unacceptable
> advertising.

Thanks. One of the reasons I posted my original message was to
stir up activity in this group.

> 
> It seems to me that database machines try to achieve superior
> performance in two different ways:

> (1) by designing special-purpose
> hardware that can do database-intensive things much faster than vanilla
> hardware; 

I'm skeptical about this one too but for non-technical reasons.
As new technology comes out we will probably always be able to construct
a database machine that uses it. This will reestablish the price/
performance ratio that we probably will have lost due using what has
become old technology in the previous version of our database machine.
The problem here is that hardware development is terribly expensive so
it will be very difficult for us (or anyone else) to make any money
following this approach. The approach taken by Sybase will result
in machines with less performance than ours but also with lower costs.
This could result in a price/performance ration as good (or better)
than ours. If their sofware is as good as ours then they will have
a very competitive product, all other things being equal.


> (2) by eliminating the vanilla operating system, allowing
> the DBMS software to run directly on the hardware (a.k.a. writing a
> special-purpose OS that will support only the DBMS software).
> 

This is probably the largest difference between us and Sybase.
I think your comments were exactly right on this. Our operating
system doesn't have to worry about lots of the stuff that Unix
or VMS has to look after. I don't know anything about the
kernal that runs on the IDM but from what I've heard, it is a
very important reason why our performance is so good, especially
given the age of the IDM.

These opinions are mine only, which should be clear since the first
one contradicts our whole approach. I should also add that I make
no claim of being a database expert. I'm in charge of our VMS host
software.

Jon Forrest
ucbvax!mtxinu!blia!forrest