The DB/Expo conference returns to New York City the week of December 2, 1996. One of the hottest sessions will be "The Great Debate" among technology visionaries from leading RDBMS vendors. Participants will argue about the best architectures for supporting complex data in relational and object-relational DBMSs. After speaking to panel members and vendors, I can summarize each vendor's key arguments and plans.
Michael Stonebraker of Informix reports that Illustra engine is now being merged into the Informix-OnLine engine to create the Informix-Universal Server. This product entered beta in the fall of 1996, and Informix will formally announce its upcoming availability at DB/Expo. The Informix-Universal Server is a single engine that understands and manages both tables and classes (objects). The engine is augmented by DataBlades that tell the engine how to handle new complex data types, including operators, methods, storage, and optimizer instructions. Informix's Universal Server will be the next upgrade to its RDBMS servers, not a separate product line.
Oracle introduced its own Universal Server in February 1996. It incorporates the Oracle7 RDBMS engine, along with support for complex data including text (Oracle's ConText option), multidimensional (Oracle's Express Server), spatial, video, and HTML pages (Oracle's Web Server). It will also store email messages in the Oracle DBMS instead of in a file system. According to Oracle's Mark Jarvis, the Oracle RDBMS can store and serve (via SQL extensions) all of the complex data types (except video, which requires a separate server) supported in the Oracle Universal Server. When I asked if such support meant that a user would install and manage a single DBMS engine, Jarvis explained that the Universal Server is "one server with several options," because not all customers want all options. Jarvis also positioned Oracle8 as release 2 of the Universal Server. Oracle8 will use "Data Cartridges" to support user-defined data types.
IBM's Relational Extenders for DB2 version 2 began shipping in early 1996. They leverage DB2's support for user-defined data types, including text, image, audio, video, and fingerprints. New extenders for spatial and time-series data are in the works. The Extenders operate on both the database server and the client; the client portion provides a query interface and displays or renders the results. According to Don Haderle of IBM, DB2 version 3 embraces Persistent Stored Modules (PSM) from the SQL3 standard. The PSM object model may provide portability across RDBMSs if other vendors adopt it. DB2 version 3 is now in beta and should ship in the first half of 1997.
According to Sybase's Robert Epstein, his company's Omni Server, Open Server, and ObjectConnect products can effectively integrate relational and non-relational data, so no separate universal server is necessary. Basically, Sybase has not announced an integrated object-relational server, and the company does not seem to have any plans to do so. (I believe that Sybase tried and failed to build an object-relational engine.)
Charles Wang of Computer Associates, a DB/Expo keynote speaker, also argued against the object-relational wave and in favor of pure object DBMSs as partners in a heterogeneous environment that also includes relational and legacy DBMSs. Wang claimed that vendors who try to mix object and relational databases will end up compromising support for both. CA recently introduced Jasmine, an ODBMS. CA had attempted to build an object-relational engine but abandoned that effort in favor of Jasmine.
Microsoft has not announced an object-relational database server. OLE may be positioned as an object-relational integration strategy for now. Although Microsoft appears to be lagging, I would not discount the company completely as a long-term player. Microsoft's designers will watch what other vendors do and how the market reacts -- and then they will devise their own Microsoft-centric approach.
Herb Edelstein, the president of Two Crows Corp. and the moderator of the debate panel, asked if there really is a market for true object-relational servers. It's a good question --and only you, the buyers of database technology, can decide the answer with the dollars you spend. What do you want to know? Send your questions to me at mfrank@mfi.com by Tuesday, December 3, and I'll forward them to Edelstein in time for the debate the next day. I'd like to hear your thoughts, even if you miss the opportunity to submit questions for the debate panel.
Editor's note: After I completed this editorial, United News & Media, the parent company of Miller Freeman (the publisher of DBMS), announced that it has acquired Blenheim, the company that produces DB/Expo.