|
February 2007
February 28, 2007
VMWare Snarls at MSFT
A white paper posted earlier this week by VMWare snarls at Microsoft's allegedly anti-competitive policies in limiting how MS operating systems can or can't be run in third-party virtualization environments. Worth a read, if not hook/line/sinker belief.
Across the DB and developer community, reactions are mixed -- some enjoying the mud-slinging, while others, like InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy suggesting that VMWare's accusations fail on technical grounds. Kennedy's blog post is a well-researched riposte from an objective observer.
Posted by John Jainschigg at 05:18 PM Permalink
|
February 21, 2007
Microsoft Ships SQL Server 2005 SP2
On Monday, Microsoft announced release of SQL Server 2005, Service Pack 2, for which a Community Technology Preview has been available since last November. Features provided by this release include several security upgrades, data compression, and the ability to access information in non-Microsoft databases (including Oracle).
Also prominent is support for new add-ins provided for Excel and Visio 2007, permitting users to access SQL Server databases via SQL Server Analysis Services for easy data-mining. I saw this stuff demo'd at TechNet, last year, and it's pretty mind-blowing. SP2 also connects SQL Server Reporting Services with the Report Center feature of Office SharePoint Server.
Get the goodness here.
Posted by John Jainschigg at 03:22 PM Permalink
|
February 14, 2007
Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database
Back in June of '05, Oracle acquired in-memory database builders TimesTen. Today, Oracle has released the next generation of the TimesTen product, featuring 11 microsecond data read-request response time, and 30 microsecond update times. The product can be deployed stand-alone as a 100% in-memory application (the DB itself and the database engine), or can be used as a front-end cache to an Oracle 10g disk-based DB.
Deployed standalone, the Oracle TimesTen DB can be accessed by applications via TimesTen-supplied libraries, or under a client-server model supporting SQL, ODBC, and JDBC. The DB is robust and easy to administer -- transaction logging and checkpointing can be controlled by applications at the transaction level. A sophisticated optional replication module lets you set up multiple Oracle TimesTen DBs in a conventional Master/Subscriber arrangement, or in arrangements where two databases replicate one another mutually, or in a replication cascade, where subscribers (i.e., to a single master DB) can in turn become masters to other DBs.
The Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database is available now, with pricing starting at $12,000 per CPU. The two options (replication and caching) start at $6,000 per CPU each. All prices depend on the size of the in-memory DB.
The product can be downloaded from Oracle under a developers-only licensing agreement.
Posted by John Jainschigg at 02:59 PM Permalink
|
February 07, 2007
Sun Sells a Thumper
Sun has apparently sold the first in a line of data warehousing appliances based on Solaris 10 and Greenplum's modified PostgreSQL database system and adjunct applications. The Phillippine telco, Smart Communications bought the Sun Fire X4500 system, codenamed "Thumper," to power its call center.
The new Sun appliance exemplifies the trend towards merging server, apps and underlying database. It's said to be priced well below competing offerings, coming in at about $20,000 per terabyte. For the full scoop, see Aaron Tan's article on ZDNet Asia.
Posted by John Jainschigg at 11:13 AM Permalink
|
|
