Commercial Linux Databases

There are a large number of database vendors that support Linux. It is difficult to review these accurately in a small space, yet, based on some highly subjective criteria, I've attempted just that.

As you shop for a database, you should make your own list of the features and functions that you believe are important for your application. Remember that the "best" database is not necessarily the one with the greatest number of features, or the lowest price.

For your needs, it may be raw performance for small queries, or it may be ease of administration of a database with tens of millions of records. Remember that whichever database you choose, you will be living with it for many years.

MimerSQL

Mimer SQL is unique in that it focuses on providing a small-footprint database suitable for embedding into applications. Drivers for ODBC, JDBC, ESQL API's. Runs on most Unix's, as well as Windows and OpenVMS. 

 

Cache

Cache is a "multi-dimensional data engine", based on ANSI MUMPS, and thus popular in the medical world. Includes a SQL interfaces, ODBC drivers and an Apache web module. 

 

DBMaker

DBMaker is a full-fledged commercial database. A sample of the features include:

• Two-phase commit transactions
• Triggers, stored procedures, user defined functions.
• BLOB's, full-text search engine
• Foreign Keys
• online full and incremental backup, journaling.
• privilege management on table columns, stored procedures.
• OLTP

IBM DB2

IBM has announced availability and support for the DB2 for Linux database. The DB2 Universal Database is the flagship database: it boasts a long track record of large installations and rich & powerful features. Interesting twists include:

• Free download of trial beta
• User support via a news forum.
• Includes the Web Control Center, a graphical database administration tool.
• Includes net.data multi-database access and web programming API's.

Ingres

Computer Associates has announced the availability of its Ingres II database on Linux in 4Q98. It is currently available for beta testing.

 

Oracle

Oracle has announced that it will be making available its Oracle 8 and 8.1 database products on Linux in 1Q99. A trial version is currently available for download.

• The Oracle HOWTO on Sunsite.

 

Informix

Informix, now a division of IBM, has been offering a variety of its products on the Linux operating system for years. In particular, the SE Standard Engine database, ESQL/C and Connect are available on Linux as supported products. Free evaluation versions are available.

Informix-SE is a high-quality, powerful and feature-rich SQL database aimed at folks looking for a low-maintenance, easy-to-administer database.

 

• The International Informix User Group Software Repository contains a wide selection of goodies in source form.
• A listing of Informix-on-Linux HOWTO's, including installation, configuration, compiling & more.
• The Informix on Linux page provides general hints and suggestions.
• INXUTIL The International Electronic Magazine for Informix Software Users provides a forum of advocacy for Informix on Linux, including the now obsolete, but priceless Open Letter.
• See also the SQLFlex from InfoFlex listing below. They market an Informix-compatible database.

Sybase

Sybase is now offering Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) in the form of a free, unsupported release for Linux, for both development and deployment. Besides a raft of flagship-product capabilities, Sybase currently holds the world TPM/C speed record on a non-clustered SMP box.

Sybase also offers the OpenClient/C libraries in free, unsupported form. These libraries allow Linux clients to connect to Sybase server products. They are available in

• the old a.out binary format,
• the ELF binary format,
• the ELF dynamically loadable format

There are various Open Source tools for Sybase:

• The Sybperl Sybase OpenClient extensions to Perl.
• The SQSH SQL Shell for Unix provides a powerful interface for Sybase databases.
• Sybase FAQ
• The Web/Genera web-to-Sybase interface.

 

SOLID

The SOLID SQL Server is available from Solid Information Technology Ltd. These folks are interesting to look at for a number of reasons: they offer a free evaluation copy, they claim support on Linux SMP, and they provide clients for non-Linux systems that can talk to Linux servers.

Taking the enterprise computing viewpoint, Solid is particularly interesting because it provides a number of the features required in an industrial strength database. I've abstracted a sampling of these from their FAQ and server technology overview, but probably don't do it justice:

• Online Backups, allowing a consistent snapshot of the database to be taken without taking the server off-line.
• Recovery to last committed transaction after power failure, using a fast roll-forward from the last checkpoint.
• Role privileges: users can be given password-protected privileges to delete, insert, update and/or select.
• Query Optimization, with ability to audit optimization statistics.
• BLOb support (Binary Large Objects)
• Versioning and pessimistic and optimistic concurrency control, including SHARED, INTENT and EXCLUSIVE locking.

New: The Free Linux SOLID Desktop Campaign is promoting a two-connection version of the server.

• Third Party Tools for SOLID -- Perl, python, ODBC, JDBC, Tcl, and much more.

 

Empress

Empress provides the EmpSQL database as well as a variety of add-on products, including Motif-based clients. Some EmpSQL features that caught my eye:

 

• Transaction Check-pointing and Rollback
• Two-Phase Commit
• BLOb support (Binary Large Objects)
• "Host Language" C bindings that sidestep the performance overhead introduced by SQL parsers.
• Foreign Key support for referential integrity

• product overview
• Personal Empress for Linux
• Empress Web HTML Toolkit

 

Adabas D

Adabas D from Software AG can be obtained from Caldera, S.u.S.E GmbH and S.u.S.E LLC; S.u.S.E. offer support contracts. The feature list rattles off the following:

• Multi-threaded, Multi-server
• Disk mirroring for fault tolerance
• Synchronized Replicas
• Multiple SQL Dialects, incl. ANSI, Oracle, DB2
• BLOBs
• Optimistic Locking

A Menu-driven database administration tool supports:

• Wide variety of performance statistics
• Tracing, Logging Backup

• ADABAS D Personal Edition on Linux - HowTo
• Software AG U.S. Sales Office
• VORTEXJava (tm) from Trifox
• VORTEXjdbc (tm) from Trifox

 

Velocis Database Server

Raima's Velocis Database Server is a client/server SQL database engine that is built into thousands of commercial applications. It offers multiple API's, including an ANSI SQL C-API, a low-level C-API, C++ class libraries, and a custom API through Server Extensions. Velocis supports the relational database model and the pointer-based network database model, but for flexibility and performance, developers can combine these two database models. The Server Extension feature allows application code to be hosted directly on the database server, reducing network traffic.

 

mSQL

The MiniSQL database from Hughes Technologies provides a simple, fast database that supports a subset of SQL. This is a popular, solid, widely used database and is superb for basic database applications. It comes with an extensive set of freeware tools, language bindings (e.g. Java, Perl, Tcl/tk), monitors, web interfaces, ODBC, JDBC bindings. It is packaged as shareware, and the current version comes in source code form. Its principal drawback is its lack of support for the industrial strength features such as transaction support and multi-tasking.

 

Kubl

The Kubl Home Page describes a "High Performance, Compact DBMS Server [and] Replication Server [with] ODBC Client API, SQL [and] Stored Procedures [support]" It runs on NT and most Unix's.

• Replication / Hot Sparing / Online Backups
• Automatic Checkpoints / Recovery to last committed transaction
• Role privileges for different users
• Multi-threaded, makes use of SMP
• SAG/CLI C Language interfaces for Unix
• BLOB support
• non-locking historical read-only
• pessimistic exclusive/non-exclusive concurrency controls
• OO features, such as table inheritance, row id's, variable length vector data in columns, dynamically bound data types, etc.
• "Kubl/PL", an internal programming (stored procedure) language.
• ODBC driver for Windows NT

The Linux pricing for this is *very* *sweet*, just a small fraction of the price for other OS/s.

• News: The NT port of Kubl is as fast as the Unix versions, and it outperforms MS SQL. Does this imply that Linux/Kubl outperforms MS SQL? I dunno ... but the implication is there.

 

YARD-SQL

YARD Software GmbH offers YARD-SQL. This appears to be a high-end package, with a large variety of features; among them an X11/Motif interface. Some randomly selected features:  

• X11/Motif interfaces
• ODBC support
• NLS National Language Support
• Query Optimizer
• Integrity constraints
• Stored procedures, Triggers

• Personal Edition (free for non-commercial use)

 

JustLogic

The SQL Relational Database System from JustLogic Technologies. Their feature list should be consulted for details; some features that caught my eye are:  

• Transaction Support (Two Phase Commit)
• Automatic rollback after hardware/software/power failure.
• Cost-Based Optimizer

 

FrontBase

Frontbase has many supported features. 

 

DBIX

Halcyon Software is known for its Windows-Unix cross platform tools. It offers the DBIX SQL database. Some salient features:

• Data Recovery
• Transaction Logging
• Full ANSI SQL compliance
• ODBC Interfaces
• Visual Basic (VBIX) interoperabilit 

 

 

SQLFlex

The SQLFlex database from InfoFlex.

• ANSI SQL
• Row level locking
• Informix-ESQL/C and Informix SE API and database compatible
• Unlimited users per runtime
• Runs on Linux, other Unix's, Windows NT
• Source Code avail for approx $15,000

InfoFlex also markets an Informix-look-alike 4GL, a report writer, and a general ledger accounting system.

 

Texis

The Texis database from Thunderstone Specializes in support for natural language text, images, video and audio.

A very professional web site ... I really enjoyed the demo pages.

Linter

The Linter SQL Server from Relex-US Ltd. Demo versions can be downloaded from the News page. RelexUS provides commercial support in the US for this Russian product.