McObject has updated its flagship embedded database with a host of new features intended to improve performance, reliability and security.
In ExtremeDB 4.1, McObject has added hooks to “enable developers to provide a desired character-sorting sequence (collation) for data stored as text, including collation that supports a particular language or combination of languages,” the company said in a May 11 news release. In addition, the latest version can “save a database as a binary image and then restore it with a changed schema, or layout of tables, fields, indexes and other elements,” allowing customers to accomplish database design changes more quickly.
“Our support for custom collations enables you to build into your application any of the collation approaches typically supported by large enterprise databases or even a customized collation that is unique to your application,” McObject Marketing Director Ted Kenney told eWEEK in an e-mail.
McObject also strengthened “the Disk Manager process that manages interaction with persistent media … in ExtremeDB Fusion, McObject’s hybrid in-memory/on-disk embedded database. Improvements include … improved ability to keep entire objects on the same page [and] reduced file fragmentation,” the company said.
“The updated Disk Manager’s benefits span the software development markets served by ExtremeDB,” McObject CEO Steve Graves said in a statement. “For applications that use persistent storage, performance is improved transparently, without code changes or explicit developer action, with further improvement possible through minor application code changes.”
In the area of security, the company has added a CRC (Cyclical Redundancy Check) “on the database page level [that] detects whether unauthorized modification to stored data has occurred … [It] is also employed to add reliability in the backup/restore feature of ExtremeDB in-memory databases. CRC executes automatically when a file is loaded to ensure the database has not been corrupted, and when it is saved, to verify that the file has been written in its entirety,” the company explained.
McObject also added “the ability to restore a database from transactions logged up to a specific date/time or according to an ‘application-defined bookmark.’ In the case of an accidental mass deletion or change, this gives ExtremeDB the ability to restore to the last backup, and then replay transactions up to, but not including, the error,” the company said.
“Version 4.1 focuses on improvements in core things that ExtremeDB does: managing data with breakthrough efficiency, adding safety and durability, and streamlining software development and maintenance,” Graves said.