We touched on several database choices for developers in a recent article, and another one that has been less publicized than most also deserves a look.
The Inquirer’s Fernando Cassia pointed out after this article about database choices was published that we missed another choice for developers.
Ingres produces an open source database, and offers licensing under GPL or commercial terms. That lets the company satisfy developers in and outside of corporate arcologies when choosing a back-end database to support applications.
Those who have worked with Ingres for a while will recall its origins with Computer Associates. Since then, CA and Garnett & Helfrich Capital formed Ingres the company as a partnership. Ingres boasts users in North America, Europe, and Asia (Cassia, an Argentinian, will likely suggest South America too), and bills itself as the “Business Open Source” company.
An advantage of using Ingres 2006, the latest version of the database, comes from the FAQ, and describes the advanced query optimization it possesses:
A complex query that used to take hours can now be done in minutes with Ingres 2006’s improved parallel query processing and key range table partitioning. Ingres 2006 automatically decomposes complex database queries, processes the results in parallel and then rejoins and returns the results in a fraction of the time taken by traditional query optimizers.
Support for data access and development platforms runs the gamut of acronyms and names in applications: ODBC, JDBC, .NET, Eclipse, PHP, Perl, Python and Ruby.
Company CTO and senior VP Dave Dargo blogs about Ingres, and in his latest post campaigns for Ingres’ inclusion on any short list of database software to be evaluated:
Ingres’s investments are producing an integrated maintenance unit where the operating system and database system are indistinguishable. Ingres and Linux are open-sourced under the GNU Public License (GPL). Ingres can put these two products together so they are maintained as a single unit.
Ingres offers a number of enterprise-class features. Its switch to offering a GPL option instead of the older CA Trusted Open Source license permits interested developers to safely try it out, and follow up successful tests with recommendations to upgrade to more business-suitable license terms.
Ingres and Dargo probably hope that happens, anyway. Given its features, there doesn’t seem to be a reason not to evaluate Ingres on its merits.
—
Tag:
Add to document.write(“Del.icio.us”) | DiggThis | Yahoo! My Web | Furl It
Bookmark Murdok –
David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
