Oracle Rdb

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Oracle Rdb

Rdb/VMS is a relational database management system

Relational database management system

A Relational database management system is a database management system that is based on the relational model as introduced by E. F. Codd. Most popular commercial and open source databases currently in use are based on the relational model....
(RDBMS) for the Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard

The Hewlett-Packard Company , commonly referred to as HP, is a technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States....
OpenVMS

OpenVMS

OpenVMS , previously known as VAX-11/VMS, VAX/VMS or VMS, is the name of a high-end computer server operating system that runs on the VAX and DEC Alpha families of computers, developed by Digital Equipment Corporation of Maynard, Massachusetts, Massachusetts , and most recently on Hewlett-Packard systems built around the In...
operating system

Operating system

An operating system is an interface between hardware and applications; it is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the limited resources of the computer....
. It was originally created by Digital Equipment Corporation

Digital Equipment Corporation

Digital Equipment Corporation was a pioneering United States company in the computer industry. It is often referred to within the computing industry as DEC ....
(DEC) in 1984 as part of the VMS Information Architecture, intended to be used for data storage and retrieval by high-level languages and/or other DEC products such as DATATRIEVE

DATATRIEVE

DATATRIEVE is a database query and report writer tool that runs on the HP OpenVMS operating system as well as several PDP-11 operating systems....
, RALLY, and TEAMDATA.

In 1994 DEC sold the Rdb division to Oracle Corporation

Oracle Corporation

Oracle Corporation specializes in developing and marketing enterprise software products ? particularly database management systems. Through organic growth and a number of high-profile acquisitions, Oracle enlarged its share of the software market....
where it was rebranded Oracle Rdb. Oracle is still enhancing and developing this product in 2008 (although "Oracle Database" products like Oracle 10g get the lion's share of Oracle's advertising budget).

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Encyclopedia

Rdb/VMS is a relational database management system

Relational database management system

Hewlett-Packard

The Hewlett-Packard Company , commonly referred to as HP, is a technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, United States....
OpenVMS

OpenVMS

Operating system

Digital Equipment Corporation

DATATRIEVE

Oracle Corporation

VAX

VAX was an instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the mid-1970s. A 32-bit complex instruction set computer ISA, it was designed to extend or replace DEC's various Programmed Data Processor ISAs....
, Alpha

DEC Alpha

Alpha, originally known as Alpha AXP, was a 64-bit reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation , designed to replace the 32-bit VAX complex instruction set computer ISA and its implementations....
and IA-64(Itanium). It used to run on DEC Tru64 and Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is a multinational corporation computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of computer software products for computing devices....
Windows NT

Windows NT

Microsoft

Windows NT

Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was originally designed to be a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix....
port was never released as Oracle could not obtain support on the compilers necessary for this platform.

Rdb featured one of the first cost-based optimizers, and after acquisition Oracle introduced a cost-based optimizer in its regular Oracle RDBMS product.

Interactive access to the Oracle Rdb can be by SQL

SQL

SQL is a database computer language designed for the retrieval and management of data in relational database management systems , database schema creation and modification, and database object access control management....
(Structured Query Language), RDO (Relational Database Operator), or both.

High level languages usually access Oracle-Rdb by:

embedding RDO statements in the source file then running it through a precompiler
embedding SQL statements in the source file then running it through a precompiler
placing the SQL statements in a file external to the source code; this separate file is converted to object code by the "SQL Module Language" compiler, and the source code then references these SQL statements and, after compilation, the two are joined by the OpenVMS linker
Linker

In computer science, a linker or link editor is a computer program that takes one ormore object file generated by a compiler and combines them into a single executable program....
.

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 using indexed Record Management Services

Files-11

Files-11, also known as on-disk structure, is the file system used by Hewlett-Packard's OpenVMS operating system, and also by the older RSX-11....
(RMS) files, an ISAM

ISAM

ISAM stands for Indexed Sequential Access Method, a method for Index data for fast retrieval. ISAM was originally developed by IBM for mainframe computers....
technology built directly into OpenVMS.

Future of Rdb

Oracle has released a which indicates integration with Oracle 9i and 10g through technology sharing. This is a logical move since most Oracle Rdb customers also use other Oracle database products, allowing for consolidation.

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