Preface

The world seems to move more quickly these days; businesses want what they want right now. As such, we are moving quickly towards a real-time environment, which means instant access to information, immediate responses to queries, and constant availability worldwide. You must keep pace or be surpassed.

The world is also rushing to an open environment. Having separate systems, languages, and transactions to access data in multiple environments is becoming less of an accepted option. At IBM®, the move to higher levels of systems integration has been continuous, and is part of IBM solidDB®. For example, the Universal Cache in solidDB can speed access to data in IBM DB2® and IBM Informix®, and also to other relational databases such as Oracle, Sybase, and Microsoft® SQL Server.

Worrying about reliability is unnecessary because with solidDB all the data is always accessible from the in-memory cache. The reason is because solidDB also writes updated data to disk to ensure recoverability of the data. To do that, checkpoint and transaction logging functions exist. Therefore, even if the server fails between checkpoints, a transaction log contains all the committed transactions for recovery. In addition, to maintain a balance between

performance requirements and logging capabilities, there is strict logging and relaxed logging functionality. Also, solidDB provides a hot-standby capability to

give you extreme availability.

To get all these capabilities you might expect an expensive solution, with high maintenance costs. But solidDB helps avoid the costs associated with both planned and unplanned outages. For example, the costs for maintenance can be better controlled because most of it is performed by applications, which can run virtually unattended, resulting in reduced costs for administration.

When a database system can produce more throughput per hardware cost unit, with a constant software cost, the result is a higher return on investment (ROI). Further, it can deliver shorter response times, which increases the value of the service and which also increases your ROI. In-memory database systems can fill these expectations.

There is an evolution towards a real-time environment, bringing the potential for faster and more efficient access to data, analysis of that data, and the delivery of information for making more informed business decisions. We think that as you read further in this book and better understand the capabilities of solidDB, you will agree that this product can enable you to more easily realize those benefits.

The team who wrote this book

This IBM Redbooks® publication was produced by a team of specialists from around the world working with the International Technical Support Organization. The team began their work on the project at the IBM solidDB Development Lab in Helsinki, Finland and completed it working remotely at their home locations.

Chuck Ballard is a Project Manager at the International Technical Support organization, in San Jose, California. He has over 35 years of experience, holding positions in the areas of product engineering, sales, marketing, technical support, and management. His expertise is in the areas of database, data management, data warehousing, business intelligence, and process re-engineering. He has written extensively on these subjects, taught classes, and presented at conferences and seminars worldwide. Chuck

has both a Bachelors degree and a Masters degree in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University.

Dan Behman is currently the solidDB Universal Cache Performance and Benchmarking Team Lead at the IBM Toronto Lab. He has worked for IBM for over 12 years in various positions in the DB2 for Linux®, UNIX®, Windows® area such as development, support, performance, and management. Besides database technology, Dan has extensive experience with using, troubleshooting, and developing applications for the Linux operating system, including co-authoring a book and writing several articles.

Dan has an HBSc Computer Science Degree from Lakehead University.

Asko Huumonen is a Technical Sales Manager and worldwide Tiger team member for solidDB products. He joined IBM when Solid® Information Technology was acquired in 2008. Asko had worked for Solid since 1995 in various technical and management positions running professional services and technical support in Europe, in the U.S. and worldwide. He developed a deep understanding of the capabilities of the product and of customer systems by using the product. Prior to joining

Solid, he worked 6 years in consulting, focusing on various software technologies. Asko has an MSc degree in Technical Physics from Helsinki University of Technology.

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Kyosti Laiho is Technical Sales Manager for IBM solidDB, with 15 years of experience in working with customer solidDB environments on worldwide basis. He joined IBM with the acquisition of Solid Information Technology in 2008; he joined Solid in 1996. Kyosti (or “Koppa”) had worked in multiple technical roles at Solid, including technical sales, managing support, consulting, training and worked both in North America (Silicon Valley) and Europe. Before joining Solid Information Technology Kyosti worked at Andersen

Consulting (Accenture) for six years. His expertise is mostly in high performance database systems including high availability requirements, and the IBM solidDB related technologies. Kyosti has MSc in Computer Science from the University of Technology of Helsinki, Finland.

Jan Lindstrom is the development manager for solidDB core development. He joined IBM with the acquisition of Solid Information Technology in 2008. Before joining Solid in 2006, Jan spent almost 10 years working in the database field as a researcher, developer, author, and educator. He has developed experimental database systems, and has authored, or co-authored, a number of research papers. His research interests include real-time databases, in-memory databases, transaction processing and concurrency control.

Jan has an MSc. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Helsinki, Finland.

Marko Milek is a Senior Manager responsible for worldwide development of the IBM solidDB product family. Prior to joining the solidDB development team at the IBM Helsinki Lab, he was a member of the DB2 LUW development team at the IBM Toronto Lab. Marko has 10 years of experience in software development, and release, project, and product management. His areas of expertise include relational database technologies, performance optimization and benchmarking, and in-memory databases. Marko holds a

Bachelors degree in Physics from California Institute of Technology, a Masters degree in Computer Science and a Doctorate in Physics from McGill University.

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Michael Roche is an Architect and Team Lead for the solidDB Universal Cache product. He joined IBM in 2009. Prior to that, Michael spent over 10 years designing and implementing enterprise middleware solutions, such as the IONA Orbix and Artix Mainframe products. A previous winner of the IBM-DCU U-18 All Ireland Programming competition, Michael was selected to coach the Irish team for the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI). Michael holds a B.Sc. degree in Computer Applications and is

currently pursuing an M.Sc. degree in Management of Information Systems at Trinity College, in Dublin Ireland.

John Seery is Development Manager of solidDB Universal Cache product development in IBM Ireland. He has 16 years experience in software engineering, including 10 in telecommunications. Prior to joining the solidDB team he worked in financial services solutions in IBM. He holds a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Computer Science.

Katriina Vakkila is an Information Developer for the IBM solidDB product family. She has been writing user documentation for solidDB since 2008, prior to which she worked as a Documentation Specialist in the telecommunications field for more than five years. Katriina has a Masters degree in Applied Linguistics from University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

Jamie Watters is the Senior Product Manager of the IBM solidDB product family, which includes the solidDB database server and the solidDB Universal Cache. Prior to this role, Jamie held product and solution management positions at IBM for the InfoSphere™ Industry Data and Service Models and InfoSphere Master Data Management Server. Jamie has 13 years of experience working in the IT and software industry at both large corporations and start-ups.

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