Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!bionet!ames!mailrus!cornell!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!sei!dmc
From: dmc@sei.cmu.edu (Dawn Cappelli)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Do you like your UNIX RDBMS?
Message-ID: <3378@fp.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 18 May 89 13:47:50 GMT
References: <9703@dasys1.UUCP>
Reply-To: dmc@sei.cmu.edu (Dawn Cappelli)
Organization: Software Eng. Inst.;Carnegie-Mellon U.; Pittsburgh, PA 15213   _USA_
Lines: 27

In article <9703@dasys1.UUCP> kalb@dasys1.UUCP (Stephen Kalb) writes:
>
>  What do you think of your UNIX relational database software?  I have
>to choose a UNIX RDBMS to run on a network of SUN 4's.  It should have
>the following features:
>
>1) C-Library Interface (and maybe embedded SQL).
>2) Network Capable Client Server Architecture (diskless clients, 4/260 server).
>3) Interactive SQL Interface (SQL> select * from foo).
>4) Screen Based Interface (w/ default screens extant by virtue of the schema).

We have a network of approximately 170 Sun 3's and Microvax's.  We have 
configured INGRES (using INGRES Net) on the network such that the databases 
are resident on a few machines designated as "database machines".  Those 
databases can be accessed from any other machine in the network, since all 
front-end software is NFS mounted.  Back-end executables are locally mounted on 
the database machines.  

So we have the same diskless client/server architecture that you described,
except that we don't have Sun 4's.  

I'm very happy with the way INGRES works in this configuration.  The 
initial database connection does take longer from a remote machine, but 
there is no noticeable time lag in subsequent database accesses.

As far as points 1, 3 and 4, I think you'll find those features in most 
commercial RDBMS'.