Sybase Inc. subsidiary iAnywhere Solutions Inc.s latest update of SQL Anywhere Studio will bring sophisticated technologies to the small devices that run the mobile database.
SQL Anywhere Studio 9, announced last week, includes XML import and export capabilities; SQLx functionality, for coding in the combined SQL and XML languages; and HTTP server and Simple Object Access Protocol support that enables the creation of database-powered Web services. It also supports Mac OS X and 64-bit Itanium platforms, officials said.
Performance has been polished, with a new Index Consultant feature that guides administrators through index selection and thereby eases performance optimization. In addition, new query processing algorithms enable many complex queries to run quicker. Other performance upgrades include an advanced cache management system that improves concurrency and scalability for environments that have hundreds of simultaneous users.
iAnywhere, of Dublin, Calif., also targeted developer productivity with SQL Anywhere Studio 9. Capabilities such as server-initiated synchronization and faster synchronization speeds are designed to give developers greater flexibility in designing enterprise applications for deployment in wired, public wireless and Wi-Fi environments.
Another feature aimed at developers is UltraLite Dynamic SQL for mobile devices, which is designed to ease the work of SQL programmers developing in the mobile arena. Support for advanced SQL functionality includes online analytical processing features such as roll-up and recursive union queries.
SQL Anywhere Studio 9 beta tester Larry Trainer, vice president of engineering at Shelflink Inc., found quite a few features of the update appealing. One such feature is support for Microsoft Corp.s .Net Framework and .Net Compact Framework. The .Net Compact Framework application enables access to Sybases enterprise database, Adaptive Server Enterprise—a process that formerly required developers to write their own interface. That, said Trainer, will save him and his company four or five weeks, the time it took to build Shelflinks original access layer.
“It will certainly be a piece of software we can take advantage of out of the box rather than having to design our own [interface],” said Trainer, in Cambridge, Mass.
SQL Anywhere Studio 9 is slated to be available on Windows this fall and on Mac OS X and Unix by years end.