Oracle Juices Up Berkeley DB

 
 
By Lisa Vaas  |  Posted 2012-04-28 Email Print this article Print
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Oracle spruced up its recently acquired embeddable database, Berkeley DB, releasing on Sept. 27 Version 4.5 with multiversion concurrency control and more.

The new features are designed to improve performance, availability and ease of use for developers of the open-source database.

One of the major positive items in the update is the ability of developers to upgrade the database without bringing it down. The nonstop upgrades feature targets customers that must have 99.999 percent system uptime.

New multiversion concurrency control gives each user a database snapshot. Designed to improve performance of highly concurrent, mixed read/write systems, the feature allows administrators to manage changes coming in from many users simultaneously.

Another positive item in the update is a replication framework: a place in which users can access prebuilt functions to build replicated or highly available systems.

A statement from Oracle quoted statistics from Forrester Research analyst Noel Yuhannas June report on the open-source database market. Yuhanna wrote that as of June 2006 the market measures about $400 million, including support, services and licenses. Forrester predicts the open-source database market will hit $1 billion by the end of 2008.

Oracle Berkeley DB Release 4.5 is generally available under the same dual license that Sleepycat had before Oracle purchased the company. The no-cost open-source license permits redistribution if the application using Oracle Berkeley DB is open-source. A commercial license is available for redistribution of proprietary applications.

Oracle Berkeley DB is available for download at www.oracle.com/technology/products/berkeley-db.

 
 
 
 
Lisa Vaas is News Editor/Operations for eWEEK.com and also serves as editor of the Database topic center. Since 1995, she has also been a Webcast news show anchorperson and a reporter covering the IT industry. She has focused on customer relationship management technology, IT salaries and careers, effects of the H1-B visa on the technology workforce, wireless technology, security, and, most recently, databases and the technologies that touch upon them. Her articles have appeared in eWEEK's print edition, on eWEEK.com, and in the startup IT magazine PC Connection. Prior to becoming a journalist, Vaas experienced an array of eye-opening careers, including driving a cab in Boston, photographing cranky babies in shopping malls, selling cameras, typography and computer training. She stopped a hair short of finishing an M.A. in English at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. She earned a B.S. in Communications from Emerson College. She runs two open-mic reading series in Boston and currently keeps bees in her home in Mashpee, Mass.
 
 
 
 
 
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