UNIX for transaction processing and DP

[Brad L. McKinley]

If your going to need to manage a HUGE data base then why not get a machine
designed to do just that?  True, UNIX does not handle TX processing very well
as is.  But if you used the UNIX machine as the front end to a data base engine
you could get the best of both worlds: UNIX as a development environment with
support facilities AND a dedicated, high performance data base engine.

Britton-Lee for example builds such a computer.  The B-L machines handle
data base work exclusively.  Host CPUs communicate with the data base engine
typically through an Ethernet.  As I understand it (which I admit is limited)
a protocol converter runs on the host CPU(s) and talks to the data base
engine over the Ethernet.  The B-L engine optimizes the data base in the best
manner while not having to worry about 1200 baud printers, 9600 baud ttys, etc.

With this scheme, non-UNIX computers (God forbid) can even have access to the
data base.  This makes all sorts of sense to me.  Guaranteed, 2 years from now
there is going to be another hot language/operating system/CPU out on the
and lots of people are going to groan when they want to move up to new
equipment but they can't afford/justify scraping the existing stuff.  With
this approach, all that is needed is for the new equipment/OS to talk to the
data base engine.

I know there are those of you on the net who passionately hate mentioning
specific vendors but I have have my fire retardant suit on.  Flame me if you
want.  If there are other companies that build similar systems I'd like to
here from (about) them.
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Brad L. McKinley -- ihnp4!chinet!blm OR ihnp4!chinet!mdr!blm -- (503) 889-4321
USMail: M D R Professional Software, Inc., 915 SW 3rd Avenue, Ontario, OR 97914
"First you say it, then you do it" -- Bill Cosby