[Asterisk-Users] OT: Best DB

[Jay Milk]

Firebird started at Interbase.  Around version 6.0.1 Interbase "went
open-source" and published all available source-code for Interbase,
quite possibly in an attempt to enter formerly closed markets.  Since
then, IB was further developed (closed-source) into version 7.0 and now
7.5, and Firebird recently matured to 1.5.  Interbase reached market
recognition in the PC World as the database of choice for Borland's
Delphi and C-Builder products.  Borland, during the brief period they
called themselves Inprise, acquired Interbase, so now it's Borland
Interbase.  

So much for the history.  As for usability, IB is your typical (almost)
ANSI SQL-92 compliant database engine.  It supports RI, triggers, stored
procs, just like we all like'em.  Its engine is touted for the
"superserver architecture" but in years of working with it
professionally, I still couldn't quite tell you what that is.  I saw a
few benchmarks floating around in the mid-90s were Interbase just rocked
the heck out of Oracle, MSSQL and Sybase.  I'm not sure if it's still in
the lead on performance, but IB has supported SMP since version 7 --
firebird trails a bit on this.  In practice, I've seen performance
issues in databases of a certain size.

Administration is where IB/Firebird really shine -- A database exists in
a single file.  No special partitions, folders, devices, access rights
needed, just the one file.  This simplicity carries security
ramifications; you can simple copy a database file from one server to
another, and obtain full access to its contents, because users and
privileges are stored outside of the database file.  Yep, that's bad.

Programming IB or FB is the same as other engines out there.  ODBC,
JDBC, ADO DB and native drivers are available.  As someone who's dealt
quite a bit with tweaking IB for best performance, I recommend you take
a good long look at IB's locking mechanisms due to its
multi-generational architecture.  When you know how this works, and you
program accordingly, you can really make IB sing.  If you access it
without regard for its uniqueness, you've got yourself a ball-and-chain.

I've had some extensive IB experience, and I never once considered IB/FB
for my web-based apps -- probably because mySQL "feels" leaner and/or
was available at the time and fully integrated in PHP.  At this stage, I
would look toward mySQL or Postgres for anything that runs on Linux.
For PC applications on the other hand, Firebird is an amazingly scalable
and affordable (duh!) solution.  Write a stand-alone app and deploy your
DB in a single file, running on the FB embedded (single-DLL) engine.
Scale it up and use that same DB file with the full-blown FB server.
Open source, it's a beautiful thing.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Adam Goryachev [mailto:mailinglists at websitemanagers.com.au] 
> Sent: Wednesday, March 09, 2005 7:40 PM
> To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
> Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] OT: Best DB
> 
> 
> On Wed, 2005-03-09 at 15:02 -0600, Steven Critchfield wrote:
> > On Wed, 2005-03-09 at 15:43 -0500, list at ipmotel.net wrote:
> > > For some reason I didn't think PostgreSQL was for mission 
> critical 
> > > apps.  I
> > > don't think I have any reasoning behind it, just didn't 
> think it was 
> > > "hardcore"...sounds like i might be wrong...i'll have to 
> look into it more.
> > > 
> > > Open source advantages are obvious, but aside from licensing and 
> > > cost
> > > factors, I believe speed, security, and stability are 
> going to be the key 
> > > factors for us, whether open source or not.
> > 
> > Postgres is probably more developed than mysql. Mysql gets a lot of 
> > press though as being an easy to install and config 
> database. As for 
> > stability/scalability, the .org registry is on postgres.
> 
> Yesterday, for the first time, a customer pointed out this 
> database: http://firebird.sourceforge.net/
> 
> Has anyone had any experience with it, and could compare it 
> to either mysql/postgres?
> 
> Thanks,
> Adam