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  airCom Corporation has released a new version of its database server that offers “huge file support,” the c-tree Server V7.11. A growing number of operating systems, including HP-UX, support 64-bit file I/O, and FairCom engineered its server to allow data and index files to support up to 18 million terabytes (18 exabytes). Eight-byte file addresses allow writing to a file’s offset beyond a four-byte pointer.
“FairCom’s development team enhanced the internal c-tree Server database engine to provide full 64-bit support,” said Randal Hoff, FairCom’s director of business development. “The immediate benefit is the size of contiguous file availability.”
The new release provides direct support for HP-UX 11 as well as Mac OS X, Solaris V7 and V8, Lynx OS V3, NetBSD, Linux, and the latest Windows platforms.
“FairCom’s product fits a different spot in the market than some larger database systems,” Hoff said. “The c-tree Server is very flexible and scales easily from large, mission-critical, enterprise-wide systems such as financial applications to very low-level embedded systems ranging from telephony equipment to aerospace applications.” This flexibility is made possible by the amount of control the developer has over the server, the small footprint, and the ease of installation/administration.
In addition, this new server offers a powerful development system allowing developers to build their own application-specific database server. This allows the developer to have precise control over the entire application. Finally, FairCom offers its server customers several different distribution models to help tailor the server deployment to the precise needs of the particular application market, whether for large enterprise systems or small embedded settings.
Ideal for Imaging, Video, or Audio Storage
Because of the vast amount of data V7.11 can hold in a single file and the fact that the data can be of any type, the technology is ideal for imaging, video, or audio storage. “One area that is very popular is digital imaging, such as radiology and CAT scan equipment, in addition to complex digital imaging equipment,” Hoff said.
For operating systems that don’t support 64-bit integers, FairCom implemented its own internal 64-bit functionality. This offers developers a segmented file capability in which each physical file can be up to 2 GB, and FairCom will seamlessly link the files, providing the ability to have a single logical file up to 18 exabytes. Logical files can be transparently spread across two or more physical files, and the segment definitions can be easily changed, allowing files to grow as necessary. The physical limits of the hardware are transcended as well, because segments can be located on multiple disk drives.
Hoff said the V7.11 has more advantages than just pure size. “It excels at three things: number one is performance. We have very low overhead; we’re very efficient, so we’re extremely fast. The second dimension is portability. The technology can migrate from one platform to another. One industry where we see vendors supporting multiple operating systems is the school industry. Many schools have various combinations of Windows, Macs, and Linux machines. Our servers take care of interconnecting any combination of these and many more platforms to one or any combination of database servers. Additionally, the programmer doesn’t have to make any code changes to migrate from less robust operating systems to more robust platforms such as HP-UX 11,” Hoff said.
“Third is flexibility. When you start working with a database application, developers have a mindset on how they want to do things, and you don’t want to tie their hands. Our product is extremely flexible and has very few constraints. The server allows you to control the number of files, their size, the number of indexes, and the size of fields. The only real constraint was file size. Now we’re in the class lead.”
Complete Source Code for Developers
With the c-tree Plus development kit, developers get the complete source code for all interface subsystems to the c-tree Server. “It includes everything a developer needs to develop a database of their own. We have phone and e-mail support with offices strategically located around the world,” Hoff said.
FairCom has added other features to c-tree V7.11, including backward compatibility to prior versions of c-tree Plus. Other new features include the following:
 The ability to create and delete files under transaction control, including full rollback and roll-forward capability, allowing specific sets of files to be created or destroyed as a group
Indexing on any field type in the variable-length portion of the file
Enhanced detection of dropped client connections through improved monitoring on TCP/IP connections
The alignment of high-use shared objects on cache memory boundaries, which improves performance on multi-CPU systems
Automatic maintenance of the recent key insertion history of each buffer, which holds the contents of an index node and is used to determine how to most efficiently split a node, thus aiding the “density” of the b+ tree structures built when key values are added in sorted order
A specific encryption key for each file
The ability to determine disk-full status when expanding files on a per-file basis
Ctcv67, which can convert data and index files from standard to extended format; add huge support to a non-huge extended file; add, remove, or change segment support for an extended file; and automatically compact the output file.
Pricing is based on the number of concurrent connections into the database server, Hoff said. Retail prices for HP-UX users are as follows: with eight connections, $1,995; 16, $2,395; 32, $2,795; 64, $3,795; 128, $4795; 256, $5,795; and 1,024, $9,795. FairCom offers quantity discounts in addition to discounts for selected markets, including the embedded space, Hoff said.
www.faircom.com
Posted with permission with INTEREX, P.O. Box 3439,
Sunnyvale, CA 94088-3439. (408) 738-4848.
#189768 Managed by Reprint Management Services, (717) 399-1900, www.reprintbuyer.com
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Our development group found FairCom's engineering team deserving of their excellent reputation. Our design team worked closely with their engineers to implement the file encryption which strengthens the security of our products. FairCom delivered quality service and product throughout the design process to our implementation. They have many years of providing innovative, dependable solutions to the commercial software community, and it shows.