The X Factor: Database Appliances Come Around Again

August 21, 2006 Timothy Prickett Morgan

The great thing about a general purpose operating system like a variant of Unix, Windows, or Linux is that it is designed to support a lot of different applications and many different means to access those applications. The original computers from decades ago were primitive and also relatively secure and easy to manage by modern standards. The price/performance improvements in increasingly complex operating systems have not come even close to offsetting the annoyance and cost of patching and securing them. Even a free operating system carries a very large people cost.

Which is why makers of software that resides on top of operating systems are, once again, trying to figure out how to get rid of as much of the operating system as possible and create what amounts to an appliance. The most interesting revival of this idea comes from open source database maker Ingres, which was freed from CA last year and which is experimenting with an appliance approach to delivering its eponymous relational database to a crowded market.

At the LinuxWorld event in San Francisco last week, Ingres announced a forth-coming product called Project Icebreaker that will, in the companies own words, “add operating system functionality to its database,” thereby obviating the need to install a full-blown operating system on a server before installing Ingres on top of it. Ingres is partnering with rPath, a fairly new Linux distributor founded by a bunch of ex-Red Hat techies to create a customizable repository of Linux components and applications that reside on it to, in effect, allow its customers to make massively customizable and instantly updatable Linux-based application appliances.

The approach that Ingres and rPath are taking is reminiscent of a project called “Raw Iron,” which was launched by Oracle and Sun Microsystems in late 1998 as Microsoft was launching its SQL Server 7.0 database management system. That version of SQL Server was arguably the first credible, enterprise-ready relational database from Microsoft, and to try to steal a little thunder from Microsoft, Oracle and Sun cooked up a scheme that would put the Oracle 8i database on a stripped-down version of Solaris running on Sun’s UltraSparc servers. Raw Iron was a database server appliance, and would only include those elements of the Solaris operating system that were needed to support Oracle 8i and to connect it to the outside world. This was a very interesting idea, and soon the idea was renamed the Oracle 8i Appliance and Hewlett-Packard and Dell had signed up to do variants of it as well. (At this time in 1999, Solaris 8, which was ported to 32-bit X86 processors, was in beta, and these HP and Dell Raw Iron appliances were expected to run Solaris.) The Oracle 8i Appliance shipped in the summer of 2000, and not on Sparc iron, but on X86-based SMP servers. Soon thereafter, Sun got cold feet on Solaris on X86–Solaris 9 was not supported on X86 platforms–and the database appliance idea quietly went away.

This database appliance approach stands in stark contrast to another approach that has also been tried in the market–deeply embedding a database management system within an operating system. IBM implemented its first commercial relational database system (an idea it invented but which Oracle commercialized first) in the System/38 minicomputer, which launched in 1980. The System/38’s CPF operating system didn’t just have a relational database embedded in it–the database was the one and only file system in the box. The System/38 was a computer that thought in terms of storing and sorting data in a database, and did not have a means for storing unstructured data. The follow-on AS/400 system launched in 1988 had a modified version of CPF, with a new OS/400 name, that had the same embedded database/file system format. But in 1995, as IBM revamped the AS/400 for the PowerPC chips, it also ripped the database out of the heart of OS/400, grafting a regular ASCII file system onto the operating system to support PC files and Web serving, among other things.

To a certain extent, Digital’s VAX minicomputers, VMS operating systems, and RDB database were tightly coupled, as was HP’s MPE operating system and its integrated IMAGE database, and it mimicked the approach IBM took with the System/38 and AS/400. Both had an integrated approach, although one could argue that it was not nearly as tight an integration. Today, Sun seems to be moving in this direction of integrating a database with its operating system, having picked up the PostgreSQL database and embedded inside the latest update of the Solaris 10 operating system for Sparc and X64 platforms. For now, the integration of Solaris and PostgreSQL is one of distribution and single-source technical support through Sun. Solaris is not using PostgreSQL as a data store of default, like OS/400 used to on the AS/400s. And Sun is certainly not supporting PostgreSQL exclusively. Sun drives a lot of sales because of Oracle and Sybase databases.

The interesting thing about the Ingres approach to the database appliance is that Ingres is not going to charge a premium for its database appliance, which will run on any Linux-compatible X86 or X64 server. Ingres has worked out a licensing and distribution agreement with rPath for its Linux distribution and the tools to maintain it, and customers will simply buy Ingres and use it as if they bought a regular license and put it on a Linux, Unix, or Windows box. In this case, the Icebreaker variant of Ingres code will be running on a stripped down Linux maintained through the rPath tools, and Ingres is eating the cost of licensing the rPath distribution. Basically, customers who buy Icebreaker are getting their Linux license and support for free.

While rPath is focused on Linux at the moment, there is no reason that it could not extend its approach to building operating system and application appliances to OpenSolaris, which would basically bring Raw Iron back to life. Other vendors that control their own operating systems–think Microsoft with Windows, IBM with AIX and i5/OS, and HP with HP-UX–could also deliver their own database appliances in conjunction with partners when they don’t own their own databases, if the Icebreaker idea takes off.

rPath Creates Malleable, Serviceable Linux Distribution

Tags: Tags: mtfh_rc, Volume 15, Number 33 -- August 21, 2006

CYBER-ATTACKS ON THE RISE. PROTECT WITH THE TRIPLE PLAY.

COVID-19 has not only caused a global pandemic, but has sparked a “cyber pandemic” as well.

“Cybersecurity experts predict that in 2021, there will be a cyber-attack incident every 11 seconds. This is nearly twice what it was in 2019 (every 19 seconds), and four times the rate five years ago (every 40 seconds in 2016). It is expected that cybercrime will cost the global economy $6.1 trillion annually, making it the third-largest economy in the world, right behind those of the United States and China.”1

Protecting an organization’s data is not a single-faceted approach, and companies need to do everything they can to both proactively prevent an attempted attack and reactively respond to a successful attack.

UCG Technologies’ VAULT400 subscription defends IBM i and Intel systems against cyber-attacks through comprehensive protection with the Triple Play Protection – Cloud Backup, DRaaS, & Enterprise Cybersecurity Training.

Cyber-attacks become more sophisticated every day. The dramatic rise of the remote workforce has accelerated this trend as cyber criminals aggressively target company employees with online social engineering attacks. It is crucial that employees have proper training on what NOT to click on. Cyber threats and social engineering are constantly evolving and UCG’s Enterprise Cybersecurity Training (powered by KnowBe4) is designed to educate employees on the current cutting-edge cyber-attacks and how to reduce and eliminate them.

A company is only as strong as its weakest link and prevention is just part of the story. Organizations need to have a quick response and actionable plan to implement should their data become compromised. This is the role of cloud backup and disaster-recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS).

Data is a company’s most valuable asset. UCG’s VAULT400 Cloud Backup provides 256-bit encrypted backups to two (2) remote locations for safe retrieval should a cyber-attack occur. This is a necessary component of any protection strategy. Whether a single click on a malicious link brings down the Windows environment or an infected SQL server feeds the IBM i, once the data is compromised, there is no going back unless you have your data readily available.

Recovery is not a trivial task, especially when you factor in the time sensitive nature of restoring from an active attack. This leads to the third play of the Triple Play Protection – DRaaS. Companies have myriad concerns once an attack is realized and a managed service disaster recovery allows employees to keep focus on running the business in a crisis state.

The combination of training employees with secure backup and disaster recovery offers companies the best chance at avoiding financial disruption in an age of stronger, more frequent cyber-attacks.

Reach out to UCG Technologies to discuss your company’s security needs and develop a data protection plan that fits you best.

ucgtechnologies.com/triple-play

800.211.8798 | info@ucgtechnologies.com

https://theconversation.com/cyberattacks-are-on-the-rise-amid-work-from-home-how-to-protect-your-business-151268

The PC at 25: If I Had a Time Machine, I Would Make One Small Change Quick Query Over a Database File

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