Hello Gerald! On May 31, 2003 05:13, Gerald Nowitzky wrote: > Hello Zak! > > first of all, I would like to thank you for opening the contact to the SAP > DB community. If we knew a little more about your plans with SAP DB in the > future, it is easier to consider the effects of the SAP / MySQL AB > partnership to the future of our own use of SAP DB.
I will do my best to answer these questions. In some cases I will not know the answer, and in others neither MySQL or SAP will know. In a few other cases I will get the answer wrong! :) I am making a list of outstanding questions that I will post on mysql.com in a few days for review and input by the community. > My primary concern is the future software development of what we know as > SAP DB. As you know, the "state of the art" of database technology, same as > any technology is evolving fast. Therefore there are many needs that have > to be fulfilled over the time to keep SAP DB as a full-grown enterprise DB. Agreed. The database market is a moving target. I would anticipate a freeze or lag in development of new features for SAP DB as we work to get the SAP DB development team and our development team working together. However, tighter integration between SAP DB and MySQL will allow existing SAP DB users to access features that they do not currently have like fast in-memory tables that use hash indexes or tables that support full-text indexes. > So my question is, what is the plan for future development on SAP DB? Briefly stated, our initial plans are to make MySQL and SAP DB compatible. This should involve making SAP DB understand the MySQL client-server protocol. Our long term plans are to have one strong enterprise database that incorporates the best features of both databases. This will be developed via cooperation with the SAP DB development team. > - Will the current SAP staff continue with their development on SAP DB? Yes. We will jointly develop and support the SAP DB technology. However, it will be under a new name. > - If yes, for how long? This I do not know. > - After that, will MySQL AB continue development on SAP DB? No. SAP and MySQL will be working together to build a new, next generation MySQL enterprise database. The features of SAP DB will be migrated to this database. > - Do you already have plans which features are to be implemented into SAP > DB? Not to my knowledge. > - To be more precise, will you focus on adding features and improving SAP > DB, or will your main effort be bug-fixing and adaptions to your other > products? Our focus will be on bug-fixing and adaptations. > - Are there already concrete plans, what you plan to develop? While we have a roadmap for MySQL feature development, the introduction with SAP DB will add some priorities to this roadmap. Is the roadmap stable yet - no! This is another area where community feedback is vital. > The source code of the SAP-DB is really complex. It is a mixture of > Pascal-like, C and C++ fragments with some of them as far as I know, having > their roots in the 70ties. It consists of several thousand source files. It > takes months to just get some first idea what is going on. I agree that the codebase is complex. Reduction of this complexity will be one of the major benefits of the joint MySQL/SAP effort to create a new enterprise database. > - What is agreed about the development support for MySQL developers from > SAP staff? The SAP DB staff will work with us on integrating SAP DB and developing the new enterprise database. > - Will you have considerable man-power from SAP to get your development on > SAP DB running? As far as I know, yes. > - Will there be some of the SAP developers change to your team or work > full-time for the MySQL - SAP DB As far as I know, yes. > In the press we heard a lot about an ominous "next generation enterprise > database" to be jointly developed from SAP and MySQL AB in a "multi-year > development, led by MySQL AB". > > - Will this be a completely new product, or will it be based on SAP DB? As I understand the process, it will be based on a mix of new and old. SAP DB has a decades long heritage that give its codebase both depth and complexity. We will use the good stuff, while reducing the complexity. > - If it is a new development, how long will you continue to put development > efforts into SAP DB? The efforts should be parallel and somewhat inversely proportional. Almost all of our initial effort will be on compatibility issues. This will allow both sets of development teams to become familiar with the other codebase and will get us to a stage of useful product for the community. As the compatibility problems become less and less, more and more effort will be placed on the new database. > In advance, thank you very much for your answers and for clarifying the > situation. Glad to help. I know that some of these answers are not as clear as I would like. I will do my best to clarify them over the coming days and weeks. Cheers! -- Zak Greant MySQL AB Community Advocate _______________________________________________ sapdb.general mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://listserv.sap.com/mailman/listinfo/sapdb.general
