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From: martin@uhccux.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Benchmarks and Real Performance (minor plug for my company)
Message-ID: <552@uhccux.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 3-Jun-87 16:27:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: uhccux.552
Posted: Wed Jun  3 16:27:32 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 6-Jun-87 04:12:34 EDT
References: <2700@blia.BLI.COM> <851@rtech.UUCP> <11872@aero.ARPA> <1392@ur-tut.UUCP> <889@pwcs.StPaul.GOV> <711@cod.UUCP>
Reply-To: medix!martin@uhccux.UUCP (Brian K. Martin, M.D.)
Organization: U. of Hawaii, Manoa (Honolulu)
Lines: 65
Bcc: medix!martin

In article <711@cod.UUCP> walker@cod.nosc.mil.UUCP (Janet M. Walker) writes:
>Keywords: 
>
>In article <332@bty.UUCP> yost@bty.UUCP writes:
>>> Perhaps I'm in the minority, but I don`t mind at all having employees of
>>> various vendors discuss the relative merits of their systems, as well as
>>> having users of those systems discuss them. 
>
>Well then,  count  me  in  this  "minority"  too.  I,  also,  am  currently
>evaluating  DBMSs (RDBMSs to be exact) and have not ruled out the idea of a
>"back-end" DB machine to boot :).  I have learned some  interesting  things
>from this newgroup but would like to learn a lot more that might help me in
>my decision.
>

Same here.  We're evaluating RDMSs for use in distributed medical information
systems, running on workstations with multiple fileservers separated in some
cases by over a 100 miles.  Our requirements include storage of bit-mapped
images (1024 x 1024 x 16), e.g., radiographs, MRI and CT scans, sonograms,
etc.; support of multiple security class definitions (physician, nurse,
patient's physician, emergency room physician, chief radiologist, location,
etc.)  which allows data to be assigned to multiple security classes
according to node/relation/virtual relation (compiled)/field etc. in order
to regulate who can access what data in a highly confidentail medical
environment; support for data storage on WORM drives (most medical
information is by law write-once read mostly).

On the mundane financial side, we need heterogeneous database access,
since the market we're going after is mired in conventional technology,
and we need the ability to interface with IBM databases running on
IBM mainframes.

Because we are using graphics workstations, our application also requires that
the RDBMS have a robust 4GL with a user interface built on top of X-windows,
preferably using a user-interface development tool such as Apollo's "Dialog",
since X-windows has become a standard for graphics workstations and rumor
has it that "Dialog" may become a user-interface standard for graphics
workstations.

We're also implementing a knowledge-based system to interact with the
user entering information into the RDBMS to enforce data integrity from
the standpoint of the medical knowledge base, where most of the medical
knowledge base is actually stored on the RDBMS.  I have a paper which will
be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Medical Informatics
which describes the automated construction of a computer thesaurus type
knowledge base using an RDBMS instead of the conventional FRL approach.

And we're really not interested in PC implementations, since the low-end Apollo
and Sun workstations are now in the same price range as the high-end PCs.

We'll be evaluating Ingres, as soon as our demo copy arrives, and have not 
ruled-out the use of a database machine as opposed to a file/process server
running a software RDBMS.

Any takers?

Regards,
	Brian K. Martin, M.D.
	CEO, Martin Information Systems, Ltd.
	3420-A Hinahina Street
	Honolulu, Hawaii 96816
	(808) 735-5661

ARPA: uhccux!medix!martin@nosc.mil
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