| Oracle Rdb | |
|---|---|
| Original author | Digital Equipment Corporation |
| Developer | Oracle Corporation |
| Initial release | 1984; 42 years ago (1984) |
| Stable release | |
| Operating system | OpenVMS Previously:Tru64,Windows NT,VAXELN |
| Platform | VAX,Alpha,IA-64 Planned:x86-64 |
| Type | Relational database management system |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | oracle |
Oracle Rdb is arelational database management system for theOpenVMSoperating system. It was originally released byDigital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1984 asVAX Rdb/VMS.[2]
Rdb was a component of theVAX Information Architecture, and was designed to interoperate with other Digital database tools and application frameworks such as theApplication Control Management System,Datatrieve and the Common Data Dictionary.[3] It originally provided a proprietary query interface known as the Relational Data Operator (RDO), but later gained support forANSI SQL.[2]
In 1994 DEC sold the Rdb division toOracle Corporation where it was rebranded Oracle Rdb. As of 2020, Oracle is still actively developing Rdb, with over half of the codebase developed under Oracle's ownership.[4] It remains a VMS-only product;[5] version 7.0 runs on OpenVMS forVAX andAlpha, version 7.1 on Alpha only, and versions 7.2 to 7.4 on Alpha andIA-64 (Itanium).[6][7][8][9][10]
Rdb featured one of the firstcost-based optimizers, and after acquisition Oracle introduced a cost-based optimizer in its regularOracle RDBMS product.
On March 22, 2011, Oracle announced it had decided to end all software development on theItanium, and that Oracle Rdb 7.3 would be the last major version released by Oracle. Due to alawsuit filed by HP against Oracle, Oracle was ordered to continue porting its software to Itanium computers for as long as HP (nowHewlett Packard Enterprise) sells Itanium computers.[11]
Despite the announcement that 7.3 would be the last major release, Oracle released version 7.4.1.0 of Rdb in August 2020 for OpenVMS on both Alpha and Itanium.[1] In November 2020, Oracle announced that they are in the process of porting Rdb 7.4 to thex86-64 port of OpenVMS.[12]
Interactive access to the Oracle Rdb can be bySQL (Structured Query Language), RDO (Relational Database Operator), or both.
High level languages usually access Oracle-Rdb by:
example: $ SQL$MOD file_bas.sqlmod → file_bas.obj $ BASIC file.bas → file.obj $ LINK file.obj,file_bas.obj → file.exe
A variation of example 3 allows "Dynamic SQL" to be created in the source code, and then used to communicate with Rdb via a structure known as SQLDA (SQL Descriptor Area).
On OpenVMS systems, Oracle Rdb is a popular (although expensive) upgrade path for applications written usingRecord Management Services (RMS) files.
Rdb is built on top of a low-level database kernel namedKODA, which handles functionality such as locking, journaling, and buffering of data.[13] The KODA kernel is shared with Oracle'sCODASYL DBMS (originally known as VAX DBMS) which is anetwork model database.[14]
VAX Rdb/ELN was the name of Digital's relational database for theVAXELN operating system. Despite sharing the Rdb name, and being announced at the same time, Rdb/ELN was not based on Rdb/VMS, or vice versa.[15] Rdb/ELN was created byJim Starkey, and was the first commercially available database to useMultiversion concurrency control.[16]
Ports of Rdb previously existed or were planned forTru64 andMicrosoftWindows NT. Demand for theTru64 version was so low that support was dropped. The Windows NT port was never released as Oracle could not obtain support on theBLISS compiler necessary for this platform. In order to port Rdb to these platforms, an abstraction layer named the Common Operating System Interface (COSI) was implemented to isolate the database from the underlying operating system.[17]
Digital provided a relational database for theirUltrix operating system namedULTRIX/SQL, but it was based onIngres instead of Rdb.[18]
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