database

Off-topic: Sometimes technology and people fail...the search for Jim Gray

Mike Olson pointed me to this excellent Wired article on the disappearance and search for noted database researcher Jim Gray. Jim is apparently the sort of developer that every company on the planet wanted to hire. At this point, no one wants him more than his family. Yet he's still missing.

Mike has been involved in the search. Interestingly, as comes out in the article, so have many others, but in classic Silicon Valley sorts of ways (collective analysis of satellite images, etc.). It's a fascinating story, but one which would be much better if it simply came … Read more

Open source applications...magnets for open source infrastructure

Ian Howells, Alfresco's chief marketing officer, did some analysis of the company's customer and user community, and I found the results interesting. I've been hearing rumblings for some time that Windows increasingly serves as a great evaluation platform for open source, but most companies use Linux when they're serious and want to go into production. Ian's data confirmed this, and more. (Zmanda has published data that corroborates our findings.)

First of all, the Alfresco data shows that Windows is plays a healthy role in the open source ecosystem. (In the graph, Windows = green, and Linux = blue, in case you can't see it well.) We have plenty of companies going into production with open-source Alfresco sitting on top of closed-source Windows. From my work with SugarCRM, JasperSoft and others, I know the same holds true for them. I don't suspect that this is going to change anytime soon.

Windows plays a large role because it's the OS sitting on the most desktops. But when customers are serious about production, the majority favor Linux. Again, I think you'd find very similar results were you to talk with MuleSource, Funambol, SugarCRM, etc.… Read more

FileMaker upgrades to version 9

We haven't heard a lot from the folks at FileMaker recently, but they've got a new version of their database software for PCs and Macs out in stores.

The wholly owned subsidiary of Apple unveiled FileMaker 9.0 Tuesday, the "most dramatic new offering in years," according to the press release. I'll admit it's been years since I checked out FileMaker (it was actually required learning as part of a "computer science for business students" class at Boston College in the mid-1990s). The last major release, FileMaker 8.0, arrived in 2005.… Read more

Oracle Database 11g ready for launch

After nearly a nine-month beta, Oracle Database 11g is set to launch Wednesday morning.

Oracle's 11g is expected to offer a number of features that were included under its beta, such as data compression, "flashback" technology data recovery and online application upgrades.

But Oracle customers may be slow to dump their 10g database to upgrade to the company's latest 11g offering, despite a four-year stretch between upgrades, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

Faced with growing competition from open-source database vendors, Oracle is expected to add its own open source to 11g. Last … Read more

IBM starts beta program for Viper 2 database

IBM on Thursday said that it has opened a beta program for Viper 2, the follow-on to an XML-capable database it released about a year ago.

IBM's DB2 9 "Viper" database has the ability to handle both XML-formatted and relational information natively. The successor, called Viper 2, will enhance the features of Viper, including XML indexing capabilities, security and storage, IBM said.

An ill-timed Vonage database e-mail solicitation

So, I know we all get on lists, and our names are stored in databases. It's annoying, but it's a fact of life.

But I was reminded of that Thursday in a particularly annoying way.

A friend of mine, who shall go unnamed, is a Vonage subscriber. Presumably, at one point in the past, she put my e-mail address on the company's Refer-A-Friend list. If I signed up, she would get something, maybe a month of free service or somesuch. I really don't remember if this had happened, but it's certainly possible.

What I do … Read more

MySQL does not scale

Well, not very much. I mean, who wants to only scale to hundreds of millions of page views?

Aside from Oracle, that is? ;-)

As Tim notes, MySQL is in the middle of its "12 Days of Scale-out," which is designed to show how MySQL, that little database that could, is delivering monster-sized performance for some of the biggest names on the planet.

Like Wikipedia, for example, which uses MySQL to service:

More than 154 million annual visitors More than 5 million articles More than 290,000 contributors Nearly half a million edits each day 25,000 SQL … Read more

Win some, lose some

Database and mobile software maker Sybase reported its first quarter results Thursday. Pro forma earnings reached 27 cents a share, beating Wall Street analysts' estimates by a penny.

That's the good news.

Revenues, however were slightly weaker than what Wall Street soothsayers were expecting, coming in at $230 million, verses their expectations of $231.6 million. The company's stock got punished, falling 6.8 percent to $24.42 a share at the close.

That's the bad news.

John Chen, Sybase's CEO, says he's baffled by the street's reaction, given that revenues overall were up … Read more

Databases keep getting easier: Coghead

When you go to the Coghead site you'll think I'm covering it because the home page says, "Join the Webware revolution." But Coghead is more than just a slogan I can get behind. It's a clean online application builder that takes the complex job of creating an online database and makes it almost simple.

No matter how straightforward the development tool, creating a database application is hard intellectual work. Coghead does a good job of getting out of your way so you can focus on your data structure and entry forms. It will still be … Read more

MapLight.org shines light on intersection of donations and votes

It's not exactly news that interest group lobbying affects lawmaking, but MapLight.org is showing us how by doing the math down to dollar figures. The non-profit MapLight.org had one of the least ostentatious booths in the Web 2.0 Expo hall, but brought an incredibly informative, practical service regarding the influence of money on California politics.

It's a mashup of voting records pulled from the Official California Legislative Information Web site (up to the 2003-2004 session right now, with 2005-2006 on the way), and campaign contributions kept by the Institute on Money in State Politics.

The … Read more