|
In the LMS (Library Management System) marketplace, there is a growing trend towards Oracle as the database of choice - see chart.
Some major systems have moved to Oracle over the last few years and Oracle is now the majority supplier in the market whereas a few years ago Oracle was rare and library system vendors were either sceptical about the suitability of the relational model or preferred other more technically elegant solutions like Sybase. Pundits are now saying that Oracle, IBM's DB/2 and Microsoft's SQL Server are the three most likely to survive long term.
Strangely no major supplier uses the IBM's DB/2 which works well on a diverse range of hardware platforms including Windows, Windows 95,
Windows NT, OS/2 Warp, AIX/UNIX, Hewlett-Packard HP-UX, Sun Solaris, Apple Mac OS, MVS, VM, OS/390, and OS/400.
One factor effecting the world of databases is the strain that modern styles of application building are placing on the traditional
style of server software. Just look at the sort of computing done in libraries now to provide a service to clients. The Internet has focussed attention on the importance of delivering object
oriented data to the desktop. Users now expect an application to deliver Web pages, complete with multi-media, Java applets and other complex data.
If the application has to deliver these objects then the database has to store them.
The traditional relational database was designed to store basic data with strict rules concerning the relation of a say a title to the authors responsible for it. Now a database has to store a Web page or Java Applet along with the rules for its subsequent use. This is what object oriented databases are designed to do and what many relational databases are struggling to do with add-ons and re-engineering. Oracle for instance has announced several new features within Oracle8 and the associated developer tools to handle objects. CA have launched "Jasmine" - a pure object database which is going to further attack the weakened database vendors.
As some vendors have moved towards Oracle, DRA, with Taos, has jumped a level and gone straight to an object oriented database
architecture.
Libraries have to take a long view in everything that they do. How do these shifts in database technologies and business patterns affect purchase decisions? What about the suppliers who still use proprietary technology?
The answers must be to look carefully at the DBMS used by your potential vendor or incumbent supplier and ask the questions - what if
there are problems with support and long term viability of the underlying technology? And how do you handle objects within the databases structure?
Those vendors who have isolated the DBMS structure from the application will have the most convincing answer to the first question since
they should be able to move easily to a new DBMS supplier - Amicus for example has already migrated from Ingres to Oracle. Vendors using their own proprietary database have to worry more about
whether they have the resources to re-engineer for objects and other industry developments as the pace of change increases.
Almost all of the main database technologies are adding some object handling features - the question is whether the greater efficiency
and speed of application development with the true object databases will win out over the sheer marketing muscle of the likes of Oracle as they themselves try very hard to re-engineer their products.
|
