Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!DMasterson
From: DMasterson@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Data Base Machines
Message-ID: <9156@cup.portal.com>
Date: 16 Sep 88 06:58:06 GMT
References: <21755@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 18
XPortal-User-Id: 1.1001.2888

>	Could someone please tell me exactly what a data base machine is and
>how if differs from a DBMS (besides being hardware based)?
>
     In general, there is little difference.  The concept is becoming blurred.
Typically, a database machine is a smart machine to which database requests
can be passed (typically in an SQL/Quel like language) and it will process the
query and return the relevant rows from the database.  This assumes, of
course, a relational database machine which need not be the case.  There have
been textual database machines -- even a file server might be considered a
database machine!  Originally, database systems that implemented a front-end,
back-end mechanism on two different machines was considered a database
machine.  Now, however, a lot of the database systems that grew up as
software-only database systems are going that route (Ingres/Star,
Informix-Turbo, Oracle(?), Sybase), so the distinction has definitely become
blurred in the commercial sense.

David Masterson
DMasterson@cup.portal.com