www.mimer.com/developer

Technical Benefits Overview

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Mimer SQL is a mature and highly advanced Relational Database Management System, which is in use in mission-critical systems throughout the world. It offers a number of features, many unique to Mimer SQL, which provide significant advantages in five key areas:

Ease-of-Use

• Automatic self-tuning, means a limited number of tuning parameters, and so removes the need for highly skilled staff.
• Dynamic re-organization of the database during run-time, thus avoiding any manual intervention for re-organizing the database.
• Automatic on-the-fly extension of database files, when required, without any costly manual formatting of new areas.
• Fully automated complete recovery from system failures.
• Optimistic concurrency control guarantees that no deadlocks can occur.
• Use of standard OS files for all database storage allows OS utilities to be used (e.g. for backups), and allows advantage to be taken of the latest storage technologies as they become available.
• Can be packaged with the applications to allow a single installation of both application and database software.
• Installed in a few minutes.
• Small footprint.

Performance

• Multi-threaded requester-server architecture based on threads, which makes it ideally suited to symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) environments as well as single processor machines.
• Advanced SQL optimizer uses statistics to ensure queries use the most efficient access routes. Includes use of data pre-fetch by the database server.
• Stored procedures and functions for optimal performance in network environments.
• Compiled SQL-queries and stored routines are cached and shared, minimizing the number of compilations performed, thereby improving performance where there is heavy use of dynamic SQL (e.g. JDBC and ODBC).
• Caching techniques are specifically adapted for SMP environments.
• Use of highly efficient sort algorithms.
• Transaction management using Optimistic Concurrency Control, a method pioneered by Upright Database Technology, which overcomes many of the problems of conventional locking techniques such as deadlocks, and locks being retained by defunct connections, whilst offering superior performance.
• Group commit transactions make optimal use of the available I/O-capacity.
• Ability to perform Read-Only transactions for optimal performance when executing transactions that do not update the database; allowing mixed workload environments such as data warehouse and OLTP applications.
• Highly optimized B*-tree structure used for all tables, giving rapid access for keyed and sequential retrievals, and exceptionally high space utilization with no fragmentation of free space.
• Automatic continual re-balancing guarantees perfectly balanced B*-tree structures without incurring delays for the users, and no possibility of corrupt tree structures even following a hardware failure.
• Fast restart, including integrity checks, following a system failure.
• JDBC and ODBC implemented as native drivers integrated into the product, rather than as add-on layers.
• Optimized for open interfaces (e.g. bulk fetch in ODBC).

Security

• The use of triggers, constraints, functions and stored procedures allows rules to be encapsulated in the database and enforces the rules for all clients connecting to the database.
• Full set of integrity restraints to ensure logical database consistency.
• Advanced security facilities offering fine-grain access control. A role concept allows access using an application to be differentiated from ad-hoc access.
• System and object privileges controls access to database administration functions and objects in the database.
• Backup and recovery functionality guarantees that a consistent and up-to-date database always can be restored after a disk crash.
• Audit trail utility that provides information about performed transactions in the system.

24 x 7 Operations

• Maintenance-free operations mean no downtime.
• Database structures always optimally organized and therefore never any requirement to carry out database reorganizations.
• Continuous operation by allowing online backups, without any interruptions to the users.
• Shadowing facility that allows transparent recovery following disk hardware failure.
• Extremely stable behavior in run-time environments, which removes the need to stop the database for manual intervention.

Openness

• Maximum conformance to SQL standards. First DBMS in the world with support for SQL-92 transitional level.
• Compatible with all major web and client/server application development tools through the JDBC and ODBC interfaces.
• Compliant with many middleware products for transaction processing, like Tuxedo, Microsoft Transaction Server and Inprise's Application Server.
• Available on a wide range of platforms including UNIX (including Linux), Windows and OpenVMS.

Upright Database Technology AB Voice: +46 18 780 92 00 Fax: +46 18 780 92 40 dbtechnology@upright.se