Main Frame in Issue #5 Frames

Enhancements to Products Now Underway
Since Oracle's announcement of their intent to acquire Digital's Database Systems Group (Sept. 1, 1994), over 250 letters of employment offers have been sent and accepted by the database systems employees, a new Oracle development center has been established in New England for database systems employees, as well as a support center in Colorado. Additionally, work on enhancing the DBMS product is ongoing, and efforts are well underway to provide greater interoperability between the DBMS and Oracle family of products.

Development Efforts Underway
Oracle recently completed and released DBMS v6.1 that offers significant enhancements over previous releases, including the ability to run multiple versions of DBMS concurrently on one system.

In development at Oracle, is the next version of DBMS, version 7.0. The DBMS engineering group is working closely with customers to develop a comprehensive list of features and functionality that will go into this version.

Customer Driven

A DBMS working group within Oracle's Customer Advisory Council has been established to provide input on future product directions. The WG conducted its first meeting on February 27, 1995.

"We are committed to making significant investments in the Rdb [and DBMS] technology set, and we're happy to report the progress we've made thus far," said Beatriz Infante, vice president, Oracle Corp. "I'm confident the Rdb [and DBMS] customer will be pleased and encouraged with the work completed to date and see this as evidence of our commitment to the maintenance and growth of Rdb [and DBMS] as a product line within Oracle."

Product Support
DBMS customers will have the immediate benefits of support and consulting services designed specifically around their requirements. The same people who supported DBMS in the past have now become Oracle employees and will continue to provide world class support services. Oracle will honor existing DBMS support contracts. In the future, customers can renew on an annual basis at one of the Oracle medal levels of service (bronze, silver, or gold)-(see related Oracle Services article.)

Oracle Consulting has established a new group for Rdb [and DBMS]. The group includes individuals who were previously members of Digital's database systems sales consulting organization and who have now joined Oracle. They bring a level of expertise for the entire range of database products.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation. Oracle7, Oracle Media Server, Oracle Cooperative Applications, Cooperative Development Environment and Oracle Transparent Gateway are trademarks of Oracle Corporation. All other product or company names mentioned are used for identification purposes only, and may be trademarks of their respective owners.

DBMS Hints, Kinks & Work-arounds
Q. What safeguards should be made when upgrading DBMS?
A. Software Concepts International strongly recommends performing a full DBO/BACKUP both before and after the upgrade. It is also good idea save a copy of the pre-conversion root file. This will allow you to recover the old root file if something goes wrong during the DBO/CONVERT command. Note that once a database has been updated after the conversion, this old root file should never be used to return to the prior version.

DBMS 6.1 supports multiversioning. This should help to resolve some of the upgrade problems experienced in the past. With multiversioning, it is possible to run v6.1 on one database while running a previous version of DBMS on a different database on the same system. Note that you cannot run different versions of DBMS against one database-a database is converted to a specific version level.

Q. We recently upgraded from version 4.3 to 5.1. Many of our programs would not run under the new version of DBMS. What happened?
A. In version 5.0 of DBMS, the metadata definitions contained in the root file were changed. As a result, any images that contain callable DBQ will need to be relinked.

Q. I am trying to create a new database, and am using an options file to specify area qualifiers. It appears that not all the area qualifiers are being correctly applied. Is there something wrong with my options file?
A. Your options file is just fine. There is problem in versions v4.3c, v5.0b, v5.1b and v6.0 that causes the options file to be processed incorrectly. Oracle has a patch to resolve this problem.

Q. We are experiencing periodic image failures when trying to bind to our DBMS database. The error message indicates the RUJ file is locked by another user. Since RUJ file names are unique as of V4.3, how can this be?
A. The RUJ filenames were made "more" unique in v4.3. Actually, DBMS uses a time-stamp for creating RUJ filenames. On some of the faster processors, it is possible for two processes to get the same time-stamp-thus the same (duplicate) RUJ filespec. One of the processes will fail when it attempts to create the RUJ file. As a work-around, you may try defining DBM$RUJ_DIRECTORY as a group logical name to place the RUJs from different groups in different directories. This will not guarantee that you won't experience this problem, but it may help minimize it.

Q. As the leader in DBMS consulting and software development, is SCI concerned about the sale of DBMS to Oracle?
A. At first, we were guarded about how the acquisition would affect DBMS. SCI has had several meetings with the new Oracle product manager and the DBMS development team since the acquisition. We have been very pleased with the level of support and commitment that Oracle has provided since the sale. While we have considerable regard for Digital, prior to the sale, they appeared to be preoccupied with "trying to figure out what their business is" rather than "doing business". The sale actually seems to have cleared a "log jam", allowing many positive things to happen with DBMS in its new home at Oracle.

Minimize down time! That is the loud and clear message of DBMS customers. Each hour of down time can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue. Yet, databases still require periodic maintenance to achieve and maintain optimal performance. DBInitialize is a high performance software tool that helps minimize down time. DBInitialize is independent from the underlying DBMS software version. Thus, you do not need to upgrade to the latest DBMS version to benefit from DBInitialize.

What is DBInitialize?
DBInitialize is a software tool that allows you to partition your DBMS database into more manageable pieces. If only a few storage areas of your database are in need of reorganization, you can quickly initialize these areas. In essence, DBInitialize is a "bulk eraser" that automatically "disconnects" the cross-area pointers of sets with owners or members in the area being initialized. Besides storage area initializations, you can also initialize (delete) all instances of a specified record-type or set-type. This makes DBInitialize useful for moving record types from one storage area to another, or for correcting record placement problems caused by misguided "RECALC" operations.

Can DBInitialize reorganize any DBMS storage area?
DBInitialize can initialize and cleanup cross-area pointers for any DBMS storage area. However, DBInitialize does not unload or load data. DBInitialize quickly removes data (and the appropriate set relationships). DBInitialize would be used in conjunction with site-supplied utilities that actually unload and load the data (and set relationships). Customers may write their own unload/load routines, or contract with SCI for this work.

How much time can it save?
A DBInitialize site recently reported that the MANMAN procedure to erase all records in the WOHAREA, RTGAREA, EMPAREA ran for over 27 hours (this routine also performs updates in the PRTAREA and ACTAREA to remove cross-area pointers). After the MANMAN procedure completed, an additional 20 minutes were required for DBO/INITIALIZE to initialize the storage areas. Using DBInitialize, the entire process (deleting all records, disconnecting the sets and the DBO/INITIALIZE) completed in approximately 20 minutes! Thus, DBInitialize was able to save over 27 hours of down time!

At another site, it took 8-1/2 minutes to perform 10000 disconnects using a traditional COBOL/DML program. DBInitialize completed the same task in only 1/2 minute -- seventeen times faster than the DML approach.

How did DBInitialize do this?
DBInitialize achieves its outstanding performance characteristics by scanning the affected storage areas for the appropriate pointer clusters/index nodes that need to be "cleaned up". In addition, when performing storage area initializations, DBInitialize performs the pointer-cluster removal operation in parallel with the DBO/INITIALIZE operations - In the above example, DBO/INITIALIZE took longer than the pointer-cluster removals and thus DBInitialize had to wait for the DBO/INITIALIZE to complete.

A Consilium WorkStream site reported that they successfully initialized all LECOPR_DATE_INDEX and WIPENT_DATE_INDEX sets (requiring a complete sweep of a 2.4 million block WIPLTH area) in only 45 minutes.

Can DBInitialize "disconnect" FIXED and MANDATORY sets?
DBInitialize disconnects all sets required to maintain database consistency regardless of the set retention modes. Thus, even set types with either FIXED or MANDATORY retention modes are disconnected without any schema changes!

Database Independent
DBInitialize is absolutely database independent. It works with WorkStream, MANMAN, MACPAC, LIMS and all home-grown DBMS databases.

Large-scale applications, such as manufacturing and shop floor systems, require a database that has the characteristics of high availability and throughput, coupled with system management features that minimize downtime. Why? Because when these applications are down, the business is losing money - losses can total millions if problems are not corrected FAST!

So it is very important that a database used in these environments, such as Oracle CODASYL DBMS, have product features that reflect performance and high availability. And it is just as important that software services and support be in place for the product when problems do occur. Does Oracle's Customer Support Program measure up to the challenge?
The answer is "yes"! Over the past several months, Oracle has worked hard to revamp the entire program. A Globalization Task Force of selected Customer Support managers from around the world was formed to create a new and improved model. Key goals were put in place to make this model a reality:

"The Oracle CODASYL DBMS customer can strongly identify with these objectives," said Tom Holmes, Vice President of Worldwide Customer Support, Americas. "For example, time zone coverage on a 24x7 basis is a direct parallel to uptime in their own operations."
Efforts went well beyond words; core processes were re-engineered to reduce cycle and hold times and improve the quality of service delivery. And a number of new services were introduced including electronic support, a field analyst program and a SupportNotes CD-ROM. The changes were a direct result of customer feedback - over 6,000 extensive customer satisfaction surveys were analyzed to ensure the design of appropriate solutions.

"Suggestions from our customers were invaluable," continued Mr. Holmes. "We discovered what we were doing well - customer education, our phone system, our handling of 'urgent' situations, access to problem/fix databases, and the expertise of our support analysts. And we determined where we need to improve - hold times, length of time to reach an analyst or deliver an effective solution, and to offer more proactive assistance. We certainly knew where customers wanted us to focus our efforts."

Consequently the Support Organization was re-engineered. An aggressive hiring program was instituted to reduce hold times and length of time to get an answer. Quality was improved by requiring additional training for analysts and the implementation of improved expert systems. One of these systems is the new Problem Repository which is currently being piloted in the Supercenters at Redwood Shores, CA, and the UK. It will be directly accessible by customers sometime in the future.

Service offerings also were overhauled to provide flexibility to meet the needs of individual organizations. The Bronze level provides telephone and online support for customers who do not require extensive coverage; the Silver level provides more extensive around the clock support (this level is the closest equivalent to Digital's level of product service); and finally the Gold level provides a designated Oracle support team dedicated to giving personalized expert responses whenever needed. All offer electronic support - a convenient alternative to phone support that can be designed to be proactive. Examples include SUPREQ, an automated e-mail server that allows access to the Real Time Support System (RTSS) over the internet, and SupportLink which gives complete read/write access to the support forum on CompuServe.
"Feedback so far has been positive. We are still gathering input as we need to see how well the new offerings are working plus looking for additional ways to meet customer needs," added Mr. Holmes. Methods being used include:

The DBMS customer has an additional avenue - feedback through the Oracle CODASYL DBMS Working Group, a subset of the Oracle Rdb Customer Advisory Council. This group is devoted exclusively to the needs of the DBMS customer. Service and support input is welcome as are proposed product enhancements. The working group addresses the longer term future of DBMS as well as shorter term concerns.
Overall, DBMS customers win. They retain the support they are accustomed to as the Rdb Support Center in Colorado and other locations was part of the acquisition. This means DBMS questions get answered by the same people; the DBMS customer has retained the experience and knowledge acquired through the years by these support centers. In addition, the DBMS customer can take advantage of Oracle's new, improved offerings. These services, a direct result of customer input, have been publicly recognized for the value they provide. In 1994, Oracle won four service and support awards from Sentry Publishing in their annual survey of IT executives - the highest number awarded to an independent software vendor!

And what about the future? Oracle is committed to long term, consistent, superior, customer-centric support. "Customer satisfaction is crucial to Oracle's overall success," stated Mr. Holmes. "The Oracle CODASYL DBMS customer clearly plays a major role by speaking up about their support requirements. Please give us an opportunity to keep on improving."

Oracle Worldwide Customer Support offers U.S.-based customers Oracle Customer Care, a variety of support programs and options designed with maximum flexibility to suit the individual needs of each organization.

Oracle Forms DBMS Working Group

Oracle Corp. has formed the Oracle CODASYL DBMS Customer Advisory Working Group (DBMS WG). This Working Group is a "subset" of the Oracle Rdb Customer Advisory Council (CAC) which was formed to:

In essence, the DBMS WG will be the forum for user input and feedback specific to DBMS. We hope to obtain input not only for the shorter term next versions, but most importantly, for the longer term future of the product and related services and support.

The first WG meeting (teleconference) was held on February 27, 1995. The objectives of this meeting were primarily technical in nature-to discuss technical enhancements to DBMS.

To stimulate discussion, Oracle presented several product enhancement ideas for V7.0. These ideas [not commitments] included:

The customer members of the WG had no problem in developing a list of product enhancements. Customer requests included:

Members of the WG were requested to prioritize their technical "wish list" and return it to the Oracle CODASYL DBMS product manager.

Future meetings will be oriented towards developing requirements for a comprehensive product support program, longer term future enhancements based on customer directions, and possible service offering enhancements.

Main-Memory Databases...
Fact or Fiction?

Imagine the performance benefits of caching your entire database (or significant portions) into main-memory. Except for writes to the AIJ and periodic flushes of the buffer pool all I/O is eliminated.

When global buffers were introduced in version 4.3 of DBMS, it appeared that Main Memory databases were within reach. After all, DBMS could now share 32768 buffers up to 64 blocks each (about a gigabyte). Could systems with a gigabyte or more of main memory combined with a massive global buffering strategy be the answer to all I/O bottlenecks?

Even with the advances made to global buffering in V6.0 (use of recoverable latches for managing the Global Buffer Page Table [GBPT]), and Optimized Page Transfers (introduced in V6.1), massive global buffering is still impractical in a production environment.

To understand where massive global buffering breaks down, we need to understand how DBMS global buffers are implemented, and what resources they consume.

DBMS uses VMS global pages for caching global buffers. VMS global pages allow multiple processes on a VMS system to share the same physical memory. In moderation, this strategy works well.

DBMS uses one global section that contains the root information, global buffers and after-image journal data. The approximate size (GBLPAGES) of the global section can be determined from the "Derived Data" section of DBO/DUMP/HEADER.

System Parameters (SYSGEN)

GBLPAGFIL: Global sections must be able to be entirely mapped to the global page file (which is part of the system page file). This value is directly related to the size of your global buffer pool. If this is too small, then processes will fail with an "exceeded global page file limit" exception.

GBLSECTIONS: DBMS uses only one global section to map the root file and global buffers. Therefore, use of global buffers does not affect the number of global sections.

GBLPAGES: This must be large enough for all global section pages on the system. The number of GBLPAGES required for each database with global buffers can be estimated from the "Derived Data" section of DBO/DUMP/HEADER. When implementing a "massive global buffering" strategy, GBLPAGES must also be enormous.

VIRTUALPAGECNT: When a process binds to a database, it maps the entire database global section into virtual memory. Prior to v6.1, each stream maps to the global section, requiring a cumulative number of virtual pages to be mapped.

LOCKIDTBL: Each page in the global section (whether referenced or not) requires a page lock. Thus, this parameter is directly impacted by the number of global buffers.

RESHASHTBL: This parameter is directly tied to the number of locks used on the system. Under allocating this resource will increase CPU utilization.

AWSTIME: Determines how frequently working set characteristics are sampled by VMS.

PFRATH/PFRATL: Determines the upper and lower page fault rate thresholds to begin adjustments.

WSDEC/WSINC: Determines the size of the adjustments to the working set. Consider setting WSDEC to 0 (zero).

WSMAX: Determines the maximum working set possible on the system. A processes working set cannot grow larger than this value regardless of their WSEXTENT.

NPAGEDYN: Contains the lookaside lists for OpenVMS v6.0+. Use AUTOGEN with feedback to assist in correct sizing.

User Parameters (AUTHORIZE)

PGFLQUOTA: This parameter determines the maximum number of pages that a process may use in the system page file. Mapped global section pages (global buffers) do not count against PGFLQUOTA. However, during an unbind, when the global section is unmapped, memory becomes local. Thus, the page file may take a hit at unbind time, as well as physical memory requirements.

WSEXTENT: This parameter determines the maximum size of a processes working set. Memory use beyond this value will require page faulting. A value too small will cause excessive global valid page faulting to occur.

It is the DBMS monitor process that initially creates and maps each database global section. Thus, if multiple databases are accessed simultaneously, the DBMS MONITOR process must have sufficient resources to map all database global sections.

Ok, so now we know all of the SYSGEN and AUTHORIZE parameters that need to be adjusted when working with global buffers. When used in moderation, these parameters can be set to reasonable values, and global buffers work well.

When we begin working with massive global buffers (on the order of ¼ gigabyte or more), the process begins to break down.

Why? If we review the SYSGEN and AUTHORIZE parameters required to bind and unbind a database with massive global buffering enabled, we can see that these values must also be massive. This not to say that the "massive" values by their self are bad.

However, mapping and unmapping global sections is not free. The larger the global section, the more expensive. When you consider the amount of time required for each process (stream) to map and unmap a ½ gigabyte of memory, the bind and unbind time becomes massive.

Even in an OLTP-style environment with database servers that pre-bind to the database, massive global buffers are impractical. In the event of a database shutdown or system failure, all processes will attempt to unbind simultaniously, causing an overload of system resources.

During a recovery scenario, multiple with recovery processes attempting to bind simultaniously, system resources will again be overloaded.

Even the recovery of a single process is unacceptable-DBMS takes out a FREEZE lock which prevents any other process from performing database work until the recovery completes. Assuming the recovery process takes only 3 minutes to bind to the database, all other database activity is suspended until this single recovery process completes. Thus, if you have 500 processes attempting to use the database, all 500 processes are suspended for the duration of the recovery!

While massive global bufffers (Main Memory Databases), are not possible at this time, this does not mean that global buffering itself is bad. In fact, many environments can realize significant reductions in I/O by utilizing moderate levels of global buffering to cache database "hot spots".

While main memory databases still elude us, there are still many options that will help to minimize I/O bottlenecks. First, determine the following:

1. Is access to the data evenly distributed across available disk drives and controllers?

2. Is there a sufficient number of disk drives available to sustain the required I/O rates?

3. Have conventional I/O spreading techniques such as I/O balancing and disk stripping been explored?

Disk caching

Disk caching can also improve throughput. Software Concepts International recommends using a write-through (to disk immediately) cache rather than write-back (deferred writes) unless you are operating in a single-node system.

When a disk cache is used in conjunction with DBMS buffering, a double buffering effect occurs - DBMS first checks its buffers for the data, then checks the disk cache for the data. Thus, disk caches are generally serve best when used for massive caching, and DBMS buffering is minimized.

When attempting to cache moderate amounts of data, DBMS global buffers typically performs better than in-memory disk caches of the same size. However, disk caching may allow significantly more data to be cached than is practical using global buffering.

Solid-State Disks

Solid-state (Electronic) Disks (SSDs) also offer a good way to minimize I/O bottlenecks. Rather than eliminate physical I/Os, as buffering or other caching strategies do, SSDs minimize I/O bottlenecks by eliminating the seek and rotational latencies associated with conventional disk drives. Thus, SSDs are able to achieve I/O rates in excess of 2000 I/Os per second. SSDs also utilize non-volatle RMA, with a battery backup that is able to survive power failures.

SSDs appear as a conventional disk drive on your system - they connect to your system through a standard disk bus. Thus, if your I/O bottleneck is at the bus level, then a SSD will not help to eliminate the bottleneck.

RAM disks (a non-option)

"RAM disks" differ from SSDs in many ways. A RAM disk is a virtual disk that resides in main system (volatle) memory-making this too risky for a production environment. A RAM disk is not connected a disk bus, and thus is not subject to the bus bottlenecks of SSDs. However, this also means that RAM disks cannot be shared across multiple systems.

In the event of a system failure, the contents of your "RAM disk" will be lost. "RAM disks" are far too risky to be used in a production critical environment.

Oracle Announces
DBMS 6.1

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif., March 1, 1995 - Oracle Corp. announced the immediate availability of its CODASYL-compliant network database product, Oracle CODASYL DBMS V6.1. This product was formerly known as DEC DBMS and was acquired by Oracle as part of the Rdb product family. This version brings added power and performance to large scale applications such as manufacturing and shop floor control.

"Consilium has had a long history of DBMS support with our MES application, WorkStream," said Edward O'Rourke, WorkStream Lead Product Manger, Consilium Inc., Mountain View, CA. "As our WorkStream customer base is primarily comprised of DBMS users, we are indeed pleased that Oracle is committed to the active support of the product."

This release builds on the reputation of previous versions by offering increased high availability and throughput required by applications, such as WorkStream. In addition, powerful system management features preserve the stability needed in production environments.

"Our customers must be constantly up and running; otherwise they are loosing money," said Chuck Rozwat, Vice-President Oracle Rdb [and DBMS] Products Division. "The new features offer significant reduction of downtime with dramatic improvements in performance and reliability."

A major enhancement supporting this demand is multiversioning support which facilitates the upgrade process in production environments. The new version of Oracle CODASYL DBMS databsae can be installed and tested, while the older version continues in production, thus reducing downtime usually associated with such an upgrade.

"The fact that our clients can use the new multiversioning feature to perform 'rolling upgrades' of their DBMS environment will mean they can transition to this new version sooner and with more confidence," said Bryan Holland, owner of Software Concepts International, East Nashua, NH, the leading supplier of DBMS expertise.

"It is clear that ;Oracle is listening to and responding to the needs of DBMS customers," continued Mr. Holland. Significant improvements have been made to the database verification routine. Based on methodologies proposed by Software Concepts International, an option to that routine allows it to perform a verification in significantly less time than in earlier versions. "Our experience shows that this optimization of DBO/VERIFY runs 5 to 10 times faster than previous versions," added Mr. Holland. "And at the same time, customers get a more thorough verification with improved diagnostics which helps them in maintenacne tasks."

V6.1 Offers Multiversioning Support to Further Reduce Downtime in Production Environments.

The database statistics package has also been significantly enhanced to provide detailed information on the real-time usage of database resources. The RELOAD AREA utility can be used to split a database are into more manageable pieces in a shorter period of time than previous versions. Together, these features will allow knowledgeable DBAs to fine-tune the database environment.

Other recent enhancements include the SQL interface to Oracle CODSAYL DBMS through the DB Integrator Gateway from Digital Equipment Corporation. This gateway allows users to directly access their DBMS databases using many of the popular front-end tools designed to use SQL.

Oracle CODASYL DBMS is available now on OpenVMS for Digital VAX and AXP platforms. This product can be purchased through Oracle for both named user and concurrent usage. The product can also be ordered through Digital Equipment Corp.

Oracle Corp., a $2 billion company with headquarters in Redwood Shores, Calif., is the world's leading supplier of information management softwware. Oracle develops and markets Oracle Media Server and the Oracle7 family of software products for database management; Cooperative Development Environment (CDE), a complete set of tools for enterprise-wide, client/server applicatin development; and Oracle Cooperative Applications, packaged client/server solutions for accounting, manufacturing, distribution, human resources and project control. Oracle software runs of personal digital assistants, PCs, workstations, minicomputers, mainframes, and massively parallel computers. The company offers it sproducts, along with related consulting, education and support services in more than 90 countries around the world.

Consilium is the leading supplier of manufacturing execution systems (MES) software and services. For more than 15 years, the company has been helping World Class companies achieve manufacturing Best Practices and stronger business performance through better visibility and control of their manufacturing operatoins. With its WorkStream and FlowStream product lines, Consilium has helped 50,000 users in 20 countries solve critical business problems by providing solutions that optimize manufacturing performance. Found in 1987, and headquartered in Mountain View, Califl, Consilium's customers include such Global Fortune 200 companies as Baxter Health Care Corporations, E.I. DuPont de Nemours, Intel, and Philips N.V.

Software Concepts International is a computer consulting and software development firm specializing in Digital Equipment Corporation computer applications. SCI is the leading authority on Oracle CODASYL DBMS-based applications. Clients include Fortune 100 corporations spanning several industries including aerospace, insurance, electronics, automotive, precision optics, super-comouting, software development and environmental engineering.

The Job Swapper

Software Concepts International will be building and maintaining a list of talented individuals with experience in DBMS technology and related applications.

Whether looking for help or work, Software Concepts International can help put the right people in contact with the right opportunity.

DBMS Related Conferences

September 17-22, 1995, Philadelphia, PA
Contact Mary Lou Dopart
(603)881-2024

DBMS Joins
Client/Server
Style of Computing

Oracle CODASYL DBMS (formerly DEC DBMS) is still one of your rock-solid databases, supporting applications that are critical to your business.

However, as business needs change in this crazy world of cost-cutting, mergers, and acquisitions, maybe you'd like a way to bring your DBMS data into the new style of computing for the 90's - client/server.

Digital's DB Integrator (DBI) Gateway for DBMS gives SQL connectivity to DBMS. It makes it easier for PC users to access your DBMS data, and supports hundreds of PC applications and tools, such as Visual Basic, SQL Windows (Gupta) and PowerBuilder. With the purchase of just one product - the DBI Gateway for DBMS - you can provide a seamless link between your desktop environment and your DBMS database, with no SQL programming required!

The DBI Gateway for DBMS provides a seamless link between your desktop environment and your DBMS database, with no SQL programming required!

DEC DB Integrator Gateway for DBMS provides applications and tools with direct, read and update (modify) access to DEC DBMS databases. This access can be via interactive or dynamic SQL interfaces. Support for client/server access is provided by the SQL/Services facility and the DEC ODBC Driver for MS Windows clients, both of which are included with the Gateway software at no extra charge.

The DBI Gateways are optimized to reduce response time and improve network efficiency. The DBI Gateway for DBMS selects access strategies that minimize data transfer activity. Wherever possible, selection, filtering, and statistical operations are done by DBMS.

The DBI Gateway for DBMS is part of Digital's ACCESSWORKS family of software for data access and integration. Following a three-tier client/server model, whereby the client interface on the front-end is separated from the data sources on the back-end by a middleware tier, this family of software tools provides flexible, powerful, secure access and integration to over 60 data sources from a wide variety of clients. The ACCESSWORKS middleware can be installed either on your existing VAX or Alpha DBMS system, or on a third middleware server - your choice!

At the heart of the ACCESSWORKS family is DB Integrator (DBI), a multi-database manager that allows cross-database operations between two or more data sources. The DB Integrator Gateway for DBMS provides native integration with DB Integrator, further extending the functionality of the DBMS Gateway. With ACCESSWORKS, you buy what you need. ACCESSWORKS software can be configured to provide connectivity to one or more DBMS data sources as well as to integrate heterogeneous data distributed throughout your enterprise.

Prove to yourself how easy it is to link desktops to DBMS. For a limited time, you can evaluate a full-function Gateway at no cost or obligation. This way you can experience the benefits of three-tier client/server data access. Please find the correct software loan part number below.

For a limited time, you can evaluate a full-function Gateway at no cost or obligation.

In the U.S., to receive information on DB Integrator Gateway for DBMS call your local reseller, or call 800-DIGITAL, press 2, reference code AAF. To order a loan of software in the U.S., call 800-DIGITAL, press 2, then 9 at the prompt, reference code AAF. For Canada, Europe, or Asia/Pacific Region, please call your local Digital sales office.

To access DBMS V5.1-6.0 data (local or remote via DECnet or TCP/IP network transports), order one of the following:

Try the DBI GATEWAT for DBMS free for 90 days! When ordering the FREE 90 day loan, please refer to the following:

Note: Client software is included with the Gateway. Appropriate network transport software must be installed on each client and server tier. Please refer to your Digital ordering channel for details.

Warehouse: New Life for Old Data

PALO ALTO, Calif., May 1, 1995 - Taurus Software, Inc., specializing in archival software on the HP platform for the last six years, announces its DEC DBMS product and launches an ASK software interface for DEC VAX users.

Finally a way to manage historical data in the DEC environment-Warehouse from Taurus Software.

So, how do you satisfy users wanting to keep information forever and still maintain system speed, and the money managers who resist buying more disc space?

ASK's UT functions to archive data provide a partial solution. However, unless you have taken a backup your history is gone. Getting the information back means overloading the system all over again. If you have upgraded your ASK software your historical data may not be accessible with the screens and reports your users want to use.

In response to this need voiced by ASK users Taurus has ported their Warehouse product to the VMS environment and has developed an interface to DBMS. In addition, Taurus has developed specific Warehouse routines to address the needs of the MANMAN users.

Warehouse lets you pull burdensome historical data out of production files. Archive it to a set of historical files which are accessible through the same ASK screens and reports you use every day.

Archive your history later directly to tape. And then if you need to bring anything back, simply mount the tape and select just want you want. There is no need to bring all of the data back onto the system. It works even if it was archived several ASK releases ago. All needed data conversion issues are handled automatically.

Warehouse lets you pull burdensome historical data out of production files, archive it to a set of historical files which are accessible through the same ASK screens and reports you use every day.

"Warehouse paid for itself twice over in reduced development time alone." Bill Perlack, MIS Project Manager, Stonco Lighting.

The growth of closed sales order files at Stonco Lighting of Union New Jersey, was creating poor system response times, not to mention a shortage of disc space. Stonco needed a flexible archive system that would automatically provide a "rolling" four months of orders, shipments and invoices, plus three years of history in archive databases. What's more, customer service needed reports of and fast access to data in all of the archives. Warehouse provided the answers. Set up was easy. Complex archiving procedures were defined, processed and tested in less than an hour. The whole system was up and running weeks ahead of schedule.

In discussions with ASK clients that used both HP and DEC, Taurus heard the same issues: "We are buying more and more disc, our application performance is suffering because of huge amounts of data to search through, our test databases are the same size as our production databases so our tests take forever."

Taurus has worked with ASK experts to develop archiving routines for the most common problems: Obsolete parts, closed work orders, closed purchase orders, closed sales orders, sales order change detail, shipping history, GL posting detail, and closed AR items.

Test databases can also be generated simply by not deleting the data you are pulling from your production environment.

What's more, our technical staff is ready to help you develop your own applications for those portions of ASK which you may have supplemented or modified.

Taurus software offers demonstrations of Warehouse, just call Taurus at (415) 961-1323 x110.

TAURUS SOFTWARE, INC.
1032 ELWELL CT, SUITE 245
PALO ALTO, CA 94303
(415) 961-1323

INTOUCH 4GL:
Productivity Tool for DBMS

Perhaps one of the most frustrating aspects of working with a network style database, is the apparent lack of productivity tools. INTOUCH, a high-performance 4GL development environment provides an effective solution to this problem.

Touch Technologies, Inc., of San Diego, CA, recently announced their Oracle CODASYL DBMS (DBMS) interface to their high performance 4GL language, INTOUCH.

The INTOUCH interface to Oracle CODASYL DBMS (DBMS) provides 4GL access to the DBMS database engine. The design goals for this project were to provide a high performance interface to DBMS that provides the ease-of-use of a 4GL while maximizing database concurrency and minimizing locking.

Set types and currency indicators are concepts that are unique to DBMS. Although they provide DBMS with efficient access paths among records, they also serve as a source of confusion for 3GL programmers. A set type is a defined relationship among different record types in a database. A set occurrence is a single instance of an owner record that has zero or more member record occurrences. Currency indicators serve as place holders in the database. Currency indicators mark your position within the database, each realm (one or more files), each record type, and each set-type.

From a performance and locking standpoint, each currency indicator places a lock on a record in your database, thus restricting access to that record. Excessive active currency indicators mean excessive record locking.

The biggest problems faced by most DBMS development environments are low productivity and excessive locking. Productivity suffers as a result of dealing with the complex issues of set types, set occurrences, and currency indicators, all of which are necessary to navigate a network style database using a 3GL programming language.

Traditionally, most DBMS development environments have been weak in their management of currency indicators and thus become burdened by excessive lock conflicts and unnecessary overhead. Mismanagement of currency indicators is a natural result of dealing with the complexities of currency indicators when programming in traditional 3GL/Data Manipulation Language (DML) languages. This results in poor database performance, low transaction throughput, and in extreme cases complete database deadlocks.

Programming for a DBMS database would be impossible without the use of currency indicators. However, each currency indicator places a read-only lock on your records. By default, DBMS updates all possible currency indicators for each DML access -- thus locking records with unused currency indicators. Programming around this in traditional 3GL languages requires significant expertise in the use of currency indicators, and additional code.

Most other 4GLs either do not support DBMS, fail to make use of its sets, or are so cavalier with the use of currency indicators as to render them unacceptable for multiple user environments.

Most other 4GLs either do not support DBMS, fail to make use of its sets, or are so cavalier with the use of currency indicators as to render them unacceptable for multiple user environments.

INTOUCH solves these problems by providing an easy-to-use 4GL interface to DBMS that minimizes the programmers' need to manage complex currency issues. INTOUCH makes full use of DBMS sets, including indexed access by key values, range retrievals, and access to the owner record of a set occurrence. INTOUCH understands database set types, and automatically handles' currency indicators. In fact, INTOUCH automatically establishes currency indicators only when necessary, and releases them as soon as they are no longer needed.

Most application environments require access to more than just one data source. Using INTOUCH, it is easy to access data from different databases from within a single application, all sharing the common INTOUCH syntax! Thus, programmers don't need to know to access RMS, DBMS, Rdb/VMS, or ADABASE -- INTOUCH provides a common interface to your data. Within a single program, it is easy to mix and match data from all of these sources!

Because INTOUCH understands set types and currency indicators, INTOUCH relieves the programmer from dealing with these complex issues. Programmers spend more time solving business problems and less time thinking about how to navigate the database.

Using INTOUCH it is very easy to make sophisticated user interfaces and screens, including pop-up windows, for interactive applications. While many languages require the use of external libraries or outside routines, the INTOUCH language has all screen handing and keyboard mapping tools built right in. The powerful formatting capabilities of the INTOUCH language make report generation equally easy. Creating complex reports is easy, since programmers concentrate on the report format, rather than how to access the data needed for the report.

Because INTOUCH only updates those currency indicators that are required to navigate your database, INTOUCH locks less. This vastly improves database concurrency, allowing more users to simultaneously access the database with greater throughput.

To find out how much INTOUCH can improve your development productivity, call Touch Technologies for a FREE 30 day trial.

To understand the significance of INTOUCH's lock management, try the following example on your DBMS database.

The following two DBQ* examples illustrate the reduced locking achieved when programming in INTOUCH versus typical 3GL programming. These examples illustrate the lock reduction possible when using INTOUCH. They are not examples of the INTOUCH language syntax.

dbq> FREE ALL CURRENT
dbq> LOOP
dbq> FIND NEXT RETAINING
dbq> END
dbq> SHOW LOCKS

Touch Technologies, Inc.
9988 Hibert St., Suite 310
San Diego, CA 92131
(800) 525-2527

Get INTOUCH !
Discover the difference with INTOUCH, the high-performance 4GL for VAX/VMS systems!

Call Touch Technologies, Inc.
for additional information or
a FREE evaluation copy of INTOUCH!

* DBQ is a database query utility included with DBMS. It is a utility that lets you interactively retrieve, update, and store database records using COBOL-like DML syntax.

Dan Esbensen is an associate VAX/VMS consultant with System Management Software, Inc. and President of Touch Technologies, Inc. Dan has over 11 years experience with VAX/VMS.

COPYRIGHT © 1995 by Software Concepts International. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher, and the inclusion of this copyright notice.

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