Informix Adds Graphics, Sound, Fault Tolerance to Unix RDBMS
 
Microbytes Daily News Service Copyright (c) 1989, McGraw-Hill, Inc. Informix
Software yesterday announced a new version of its Turbo relational database
that will support multimedia data, including images and audio. The company says
the new Unix package will also improve fault tolerance for use in critical
on-line transaction processing.
 
The new release, scheduled for late this year, also introduces a new name for
the product: Informix OnLine. The name is intended to reinforce the positioning
of the database to OLTP applications such as reservations systems. Current
Informix-Turbo applications will run without changes in the new version, the
company said.
 
Informix OnLine offers several significant enhancements over its predecessors
and, Informix claims, over competing databases from Oracle, Sybase, and
Relational Technology. The company says one of the most important distinctions
is support for multimedia data types integral to the database. Previously,
fields could contain only text or numbers; now they can include scanned images,
digitized speech and sounds, or even pointers to video clips on a laserdisc.
 
Like alphanumeric fields, image or sound fields can be accessed with a normal
SQL query. Because they are incorporated into the database itself, multimedia
fields are covered by the same security features as alphanumeric data. By
contrast, Informix says, some databases permit pointers to external images or
audio but leave the management of those files to the operating system,
compromising the security and performance of the database.
 
The new version's improvements for on-line performance and security include
full data mirroring, on-line backup (both full and incremental), and a fast
recovery feature that rolls back the database to the state immediately
preceding a failure, the company says. An optional enhancement called
Informix-Star, also announced today, permits transparent distribution of data
across multiple servers. Data distribution improves throughput and minimizes
the danger of single-point failure, Informix says.
 
Informix does not have plans at this time to move OnLine to personal computer
platforms under non-Unix operating systems. However, the company does market
SQL extensions to its Wingz spreadsheet for the Macintosh that let the Mac
serve as a front end to Informix databases. In the first quarter of 1990 the
company expects to ship a version of WingZ for the NeXT machine, and an OS/2-PM
WingZ sometime in 1990.
 
Contact: Informix, 4100 Bohannon Dr, Menlo Park, CA 94025; (415) 926-6300.
 
                              --- Andy Reinhardt
 
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