> Interbase is cheaper and it's open source. That's all.
No, it isn't all. It's far from all.
To avoid tying oneself to a proprietary platform such as Oracle or Microsoft
SQL Server or any other database server one must contain oneself to core
ANSI SQL such as can be relied on to function consistently across all
platforms. In an environment like EJB, particularly an implementation of
same as capable as JBoss, this is no real catastrophe.
However, what it means is that one ends up using the DB server as little
more than a glorified ISAM engine that performs caching and returns packaged
result sets. In this context there are profound and self-evident advantages
to using a free, open source DB server.
If one throws caution to the wind and uses the specific capabilities of the
DB server then I think that Interbase is still a better answer than MS SQL.
For starters, it supports functions, which MS SQL does not. It is a
versioning database, which makes it completely invulnerable to the problems
of locking (no locks, no locking problems). And most important from a Java
programmer's point of view, there is a *superb* JDBC2 implementation for
Interbase available at no charge.
Versioning and locking are two technologies that address the same problem:
ensuring the serialisablity of transactions. Locking is fast and efficient
for limited numbers of users. It is popular with DB vendors chasing very
high TPc scores because it is very well suited to OLTP, but it is completely
unsuitable if you want to run OLTP and OLAP operations on the same database.
Versioning has none of these problems. For small numbers of users it
produces poorer performance due to higher overheads, but as it suffers not
at all from lock contention its performance degrades linearly with the
number of users (therefore limited by memory), rather than degrading
exponentially with lock contention.
This is not to suggest that Interbase is perfect. It has many flaws, most of
which are compensated by an amusing pragmatism: we can't keep the server
from crashing, so let's design it to quickly auto-recover. Very biological.
And while I'm being honest about the faults of Interbase, I have to admit
that under Unix its memory management was appalling in version 4, bad in
version 5 and as yet untested in version 6.
I may not have bothered to substantiate them the first time around, but my
opinions of Interbase and MS SQL are founded on ten years of professional
experience doing back-end work for large corporations using these two
engines. I think by now I may have learnt just a few things.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Micheal J" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2001 12:09 PM
Subject: RE: [JBoss-user] BMP entity beans and MS SQL Server 7 ??
> Interbase is cheaper and it's open source. That's all.
>
> If you still have problems with MS SQL Server Jef, pls check out the
updated
> HOWTO on the site. It isn't a BMP HOWTO so you might have gotten past what
> it offers. I don't have any problems here with MS SQL2K but we may be
doing
> different thing with CMP/BMP...
>
> Micheal
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Peter
> > Routtier-Wone
> > Sent: 25 March 2001 00:32
> > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > Subject: Re: [JBoss-user] BMP entity beans and MS SQL Server 7 ??
> >
> >
> > Use Interbase. It's open source so it won't affect your cost
> > structure, it's
> > available for both Windows and Unix and IMHO it is a superior server.
> > Moreover, it is supported by default in JBoss.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "jef.cumps" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I recently started working with J2EE and ejb's. I cannot get my entity
> > > beans working with a MS SQL Server 7 database, not even with the doc's
> > > on the jboss-site. Does anyone of you has an example for me ?? I would
> > > really appreciate any code of a bean, the xml-files, the changes in
the
> > > properties-files from jboss, ...everything that has to be done for
> > > working with MsSql7.
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