Sleepycat Software Releases Berkley DB 4.2

Written By
Brian Fonseca
Brian Fonseca
Nov 25, 2003
2 minute read
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Buoyed by a new Java API (application programming interface) and enhanced replication features, Sleepycat Software on Tuesday introduced a beefed-up version of its open source Berkeley DB data management software.

According to officials of the Lincoln, Mass.-based company the new Java API within Berkley DB version 4.2 is based upon the Java collections standard. Sleepycat expects the new software to enable developers quickly construct applications by allowing objects to be more easily stored, queried and updated in a transactional, recoverable and concurrent format,. Additionally, the new Java API promotes stronger interoperability and reuse with other APIs.

The company has improved the replication capabilities within the embedded database product. These improvements are designed for high-availability applications and include enhanced management and failure detection, as well as an ability for servers coming back online to rejoin a live production environment. Other streamlined replication features offer automatic weighted-peer negotiation for election to a new master and automatic replication synch-up upon master election.

Michael Tso, vice-president of Engineering for Foster City, Calif.-based Gemini Mobile Technologies, said his company is using Berkeley DB as the embedded database in its user profile management offering.

“For our network scalability and reliability in our carrier environment, we need very rapid failover and the upper hand for a variety of complicated replication related problems,” said Tso. “We (need to be) able to scale from having a system with only one or two nodes to a system with a hundred nodes and handle any kind of failure effectively (and) having a system up even though parts of the database go down.”

Gemini Mobile Technologies, which is running Berkley DB v.4.2 on Linux and IA servers, is the maker of HyperScale, a mobile Internet system and infrastructure software products for wireless carriers.

Brian Fonseca

Brian Fonseca is a senior writer at eWEEK who covers database, data management and storage management software, as well as storage hardware. He works out of eWEEK's Woburn, Mass., office. Prior to joining eWEEK, Brian spent four years at InfoWorld as the publication's security reporter. He also covered services, and systems management.

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