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Conference ulysse::rdb_vms_competition

Title:DEC Rdb against the World
Moderator:HERON::GODFRIND
Created:Fri Jun 12 1987
Last Modified:Thu Feb 23 1995
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1348
Total number of notes:5438

774.0. "IngresStar is more superior?????" by ZPOVC::JEFFREYCHOY (Love the Sinners hate the sins) Fri Oct 26 1990 04:47

    Hello Collegues,
    
    My customer got a evaluation report that says IngresStar way of
    doing distributed database is more superior.
    
    Can somebody help me rebut on this please.
    
    Thanks in advance, Jeffrey
    
    
    
    p/s Will be out of town for a week.
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name		DateLines
774.1My 2 CentimesBEAGLE::GODFRINDCareful with that patch, EugeneFri Oct 26 1990 13:0623
>    My customer got a evaluation report that says IngresStar way of
>    doing distributed database is more superior.

Superior to what ? There are not many implementations of distributed db's
around now.

One flaw I find in the Ingres/Star architecture is that it really is a separate
product layered on top of Ingres itself. In other words, the process to follow
is to define your individual Ingres 6.3 databases on your various machines,
then define your 'virtual' Ingres/Star database that will include part or all
of the various local databases. 

Your application then talks to an Ingres/Star server which will break your
query into individual requests and ship them to the individual db servers.

This is different from an 'inherently' distributed database, where there should
not be such a strong distinction between the global distributed database and
its various local pieces. Among other things (someone correct me if I am
wrong), Ingres/Star does not allow you to transparently partition a table over
multiple local databases and does not handle multiple copies of the same
information (to cope with local or communication failures) ...

/albert
774.2Hmmm...more overhead?RANCH::DAVISRiding off into the sunset..Sat Oct 27 1990 16:249
    It does sound like a layered product approach....
    
    Saves ingres from having to do major rewrites to the kernel ingres
    database....just hack out something to link-up databases..
    
    I would guess that it adds a performance hit also....
    
    Gil
774.3Ingres is tough competitionBROKE::THOMASFri Dec 14 1990 21:5415
    IngresStar currently provides <I'm sorry to say> the most extensive
    heterogeneous database environment on the market today.  They have 
    transparent read/write gateways to Rdb, RMS, DB2, SQL/DS, VSAM, and 
    IMS (the IMS gateway is read-only).  They can support joins across 
    heterogeneous database systems.  But, IngresStar is not a truly 
    distributed database, ie, it do not support vertical or horizontal 
    partitioning of tables across databases.  In other words, IngresStar
    is a layered product that coordinates retrieval of data from a number 
    of heterogeneous data sources.  Extensive defintions are required in 
    the IngresStar catalog in order to provide directions to all the
    systems.  IngresStar supports a subset of the Ingres SQL sub-language,
    the lowest common demoninator SQL subset (only those commands which are
    supported in INGRES, Rdb, DB2, _and_ SQL/DS), so it isn't really a
    truly transparent gateway product.  But it's definitely our toughest 
    competition.