You probably noticed a news in the object database market: On December 1, 2008 “Versant acquired the assets of the database software business of privately-held Servo Software, Inc. (formerly db4objects, Inc.)”.
What`s the meaning of this acquisition? I asked a few questions to
Robert Greene who is responsible for defining Versant’s overall object database strategy ….
Q1. What`s the meaning of this acquisition for Versant? db4o is an open source object database, but Versant had no open source strategy until now.
[RCG] This acquisition recognizes the value the db4objects team created, by bringing visibility to software developers, the relevance of object database technology in the software development toolkit.
Incidentally, this is not Versant’s first initiative in the open source space. In 2006, Versant open sourced a JDO/JPA based ORM driver and initiated an open source JPA project within Eclipse, at the time known as Eclipse JSR220-ORM. Eclipse had managed to use this project to get Oracle to commit a similar open source project. In the end, both projects merged into what is the Eclipse Dali project and Oracle became the project lead.
This open source activity by Versant was aimed at making developers more aware of object based transparent persistence and fostering such an API approach in their development. We view this as a tremendous success, as now a substantial portion of the Java community uses Hibernate (or TopLink) and Eclipse Dali to develop applications.
Those ORM API’s which have flourished since the early 2002 timeframe, are in essence the Versant database API’s which have existed since the mid 90’s in our object database technology. It was an ex-Versant product manager who went to Sun and drove those standards through the Java JSR process. Ultimately, it was open source Hibernates’ flavor which gained the most acceptance, but the similarity of the approach is undeniable.
Due to the power of open source, anyone who knows ORM technology, has in essence, become an expert in the use of object databases. They can simply get rid of the mapping portion of the ORM work and then everything else is nearly the same as long as they point connections to an object database. In fact, Versant plans to release a compatibility version for Eclipse Dali.
Q2. Will you keep db4o as a separate product or will you merge it into Versant Object Database?
[RCG] Versant plans to continue to operate db4o in the same manner, continuing to foster the community and improve the technology in the traditional open source fashion. It will remain a separate product.
Q3. How do you plan to manage/support the db4o open source community?
[RCG] one of the nice things about db4o is the extended community of supporters it’s developed over the years. Versant plans to simply join that community, following the same open form which has worked for db4o in the past. Of course, that being said, Versant has a long history and extended expertise in the OODB technology space. In that regard, we have opened our technology stack to the db4o core team and where it makes good technology sense, we can contribute significant forms of functionality that otherwise take a long time to create.
Q4. db4o is targeting the embedded device market. Is this a market for Versant as well?
[RCG] Versant technology has many successes in the embedded space. However, our real commercial success, comes from the many large scale systems developed using our technology to overcome limitations in traditional database systems. So, in this regard, db4o will dominate the embedded side of the Versant business and the Versant commercial object database will exist to help those who want the simplicity of the OODB programming model, but require greater scaling capabilities.
Q5. Are there going to be any changes in the db4o business model?
[RCG] No. The db4o brand will continue to offer the dual licensing model common to open source businesses, along with professional levels of subscription based support.
TechView Product Reports
Most of the time it is difficult to gather good technical information on products, without marketing or sales hype.
I therefore decided to create a series of product reports on some of the leading Object Database Systems around.
For that, I have prepared 23 questions which I sent to four vendors: db4objects,Objectivity, Inc.,Progress Software and Versant Corporation.
I asked them detailed information on their products, such as: Support of Programming Languages, Queries, Data Modeling, Integration with relational data, Transactions,Persistence,Storage, Architecture,Applications, and Performance.
The result are four TechView Product Reports, which contain detailed useful information on the respective products:
-db4o
– Objectivity/DB
– ObjectStore
– Versant Object Database
I hope these will be useful resources for developers and architects alike.
As always you can freely download the reports.
OMG ODBTWG next steps
This is a short note related to the OMG ODBTWG meeting, on December 9, 2008.
During the meeting there was a consensus that the OMG’s Semantic Meta Object Facility (“semantic MOF” or “S-MOF”) would be a good place to start for the object model in the Object Database Standard RFP.
Mike Card is planning to publish a rough draft of an OMG RFP for the new database standard in advance of the March 2009 OMG meeting in Washington DC.
RFP stands for Request for Proposals; the OMG technology adoptions revolve around the RFP.
More info on the OMG Technology Adoption Process.
I have received a note from Mike Card that I would like to share with you.
“The OMG is hosting an Object Database Standard Definition Scope meeting in Santa Clara, CA at the Hyatt Regency on Tuesday afternoon, December 9th.
The purpose of this meeting will be to define what the scope of the new object database standard should be.
We have already done some work in this area but more remains to be done.
Our goal is to complete the definition of what will and will not be included in the scope of the new standard at this meeting. Once we have defined what will and will not be included, I can begin work on a draft OMG Request For Proposal (RFP).
The RFP is important because this is the mechanism by which the OMG generates standards – an RFP is put out there and a group of vendors who intend to implement the final standard responds to the RFP with a standard.
So, we cannot get the ball rolling until we get the RFP out there, and we are getting close. Once the RFP is put out by the OMG, then the “real work” begins where object database vendors intending to submit and other interested parties begin working together to develop a response to the RFP.
It is this response that will become the successor to ODMG 3.0.
The agenda for this meeting will be as follows:
1300-1310 Welcome and introductory comments (Mike Card)
1310-1330 Review of scoping consensus thus far and db4o comments from last meeting (Mike Card)
1330-1630 Discussion of scope areas to be included or excluded (all participants)
1630-1700 Wrap-up and discussion of next steps (Mike Card)
We got some excellent feedback from db4o at our last meeting on these topics and we would like input from other vendors as well.
We very much hope to see you there! There is a $150 registration fee for this event, to register please visit the registration page
There should be a link there soon to register for this event. Thanks!
Michael P. Card
Syracuse Research Corporation “
For a summary of the work done until now by the OMG on the definition of a new object database standard, pls see my interview to Mike Card
Carl Olofson on Innovation
Here is another interview on Innovation. This time with Carl Olofson, IDC.
Carl Olofson performs research and analysis for IDC’s Information Management and Data Integration Software service within the Application Development and Deployment research group. Mr. Olofson’s research involves following sales and technical developments in the information and data management (IDM) markets, database management systems (DBMS) markets, data movement and replication software, data management software, metadata management software, and the vendors of related tools and software systems. Mr. Olofson also contributes overview and data integration research content to Integration and Deployment Software, which covers developments in software technologies that manage the overall integrated deployment of applications developed and maintained using application development and deployment software. Mr. Olofson also advises clients on market and technology directions as well as performing supply and demand-side primary research to size, forecast, and segment the database market.
Mr. Olofson has 30 years of experience in IT, including two years of application development consulting, 10 years of database and tools software development, four years of product consulting, and three years as a senior product manager.
In 2000, Mr. Olofson received IDC’s highest award, the James Peacock Memorial Award for professional excellence in market research. Prior to joining IDC, Mr. Olofson worked at Cayenne and Cadre, where he was involved with directing the management for ObjectTeam products, including an object-oriented CASE tool and a component construction and assembly tool. He was also responsible for product packaging, pricing, requirements analysis, sales force preparation, and product roll-out. Prior to that, Mr. Olofson managed customer relations and performed sales support for MSP in promoting its mainframe repository, METHODMANAGER. He also worked at LBMS, where he led a team of eight engineers working on a repository technology research program; and at Cullinet where he was responsible for the Cullinet CASE strategy. In addition, Mr. Olofson worked for eight years in project teams developing the IDMS, IDD, ADS/Online, and Online Mapping products.
1. What is “Innovation” for you?
Innovation is the development of new approaches to solving problems. These can include actual inventions, but also new processes, new ways of thinking, and improvements on existing machines, processes, and ways of thinking that result in their being used in new ways.
2. Who are your favorite innovators?
It’s tempting to list inventors, since they are obviously high profile innovators, but I find that most inventors don’t really know how their inventions are going to be used. Thomas Edison, for instance, expected the phonograph to be used mainly for taking and playing back dictation (the Dictaphone was a spin-off), and that motion pictures would mainly be used for industrial training. He was a very serious, work-oriented person who could not imagine spending hard-earned money on a machine that had, as its sole purpose, entertainment.
My favorite innovators are people who read a need, and come up with a new way to meet that need. Sam Walton, for instance, rethought the concept of discount retailing, and realized that the key differentiator was efficiency. Using IT strategically, he created the Wal-Mart empire. Sir Richard Branson understood that a key to success, whether in retail (audio, specifically) or services (such as air transportation) was an excellent customer experience, and from that built the Virgin companies. Along similar lines, in terms of IT strictly, Steve Jobs drove his engineers at Apple to concentrate on creating not only a pleasing, but distinctively signature user experience in all their products, which has enabled the Macintosh to survive the Windows onslaught and also ensured the success of the iPod, iPhone, et al.
3. What do you consider are the most promising innovations of the last 3 years?
Most innovations that reach public awareness are things that have existed, or at least been under development, for at least 10 years. Thus, a major technical innovation of the past three years is the latest demonstration of miniaturized technical integration that I call the integrated mobile information device, but which is more commonly called, for legacy reasons, the “cell phone”. It is a telephone, of course, but it’s also a text messaging device, e-mail client, Internet browser and, in some cases, a music player, a camera, a networked PDA, and a push-to-talk audio transformer (a.k.a., “walky-talky”). In the near future, I expect it to also be a GPS navigator and mobile television set (with DVR capability). Lots of people also use it as a pocket watch. It has replaced the land line telephone for a whole generation of users (who don’t live where I do, which is to say, they must live where they get fairly reliable signal service). It replaces the older “brick” style cell phone, as well as the pager, the PDA, pocket camera, watch, and even the MP3 player. The key innovation was daring to see a single device as capable of filling a wide variety of purposes, many of which were regarded previously as unrelated.
4. What does it help to become a successful innovator?
A successful innovation is not just a new idea, it is a practical one that solves real problems. Successful innovators are usually commercially successful because they meet a market need. That doesn’t always include the original inventor of the underlying technology, unfortunately, and engineers are often poor promoters of their technology, or attempt to introduce their technology at the wrong time, before the market is ready. A successful innovator has the right idea at the right time, and knows how to sell it.
5. Is there a price to pay to be an innovator? Which one?
The big mistake that most innovators make is that they fall in love with their innovation, and expect that it will always prevail in its market. Such individuals typically fail to adjust when competitors arise who offer “almost as good” for less, or otherwise exploit the general idea, diluting the business opportunity, and leaving original innovator as a relic. The IT industry is full of innovators each of whom successfully exploited one great idea, then tried to milk it beyond its expiration date and came up with nothing original again. Any innovator should, as soon as the innovation proves successful, move on to the next new idea, and not look back. Repeat innovators always do that.
6. What are the rewards to be an innovator?
There are both financial rewards and the ability to point to something that is his/her own idea.
7. What are in your opinion the top 3 criteria for successful innovation?
1) It must address a practical need.
2) It must represent a new idea, or a new take on a classic idea.
3) It must actually work, and be embraced and adopted by a significant constituency.
8. What would you recommend to young people who wish to pursue innovation?
Firstly, have a good understanding of what you know and do well, then find ways that your knowledge, insights, and abilities can address an unmet need of a large number of people. Then, figure out how your solution can be explained to, adopted, and used by those people, and finally, be prepared to work long and hard to make your solution a reality.
9. In your opinion how can we create a culture that supports and sustains innovation?
We need to encourage inquisitiveness, curiosity, imagination, and independent thinking. Our society has a depressingly large degree of “herd mentality” thinking, and I fear the highly programmed nature of many kids’ upbringing these days tends to depress independence in thought and action. Promoting science and technology, including technical competition
, is important as well.
10. What do you think stops/slows down innovation?
Excessive caution, conformity, lack of imagination and initiative. Also, the current climate of popular culture, which seems to denigrate science in particular and intellectual excellence in general.
10+1 .Do you think becoming an innovator can be taught? If yes, how?
No, but the qualities I outlined above can be encouraged in the way courses are taught and kids are raised, and those qualities in turn lead to innovation.
10+2. What is in your opinion the influence that a “location” (country/region) plays with respect to the possibility to be a
successful innovator?
10+3. What would you recommend to make a “location” attractive for innovation?
If by “location” you mean physical location, then I guess the presence of educational institutions, a highly competitive environment, and venture capital would be pretty key. Innovation can happen anywhere, though.
ICOODB 2009: Call for Contributions
ODBMS.ORG is supporting the International Conference on Object Databases (ICOODB) 2009.
ICOODB 2009, to be held 1-3 July 2009, at ETH, in Zurich (Switzerland), is the second in a series of international conferences aimed at promoting the exchange of information and ideas between members of the object database community.
An important feature of the conference is its goal to bring together developers, users and researchers.
At the same time, the conference aims to meet the needs of the different sub-communities. The conference therefore consists of three different tracks offered as a tutorial day, an industry day and a research day.
ICOODB 2009 invites submissions for tutorials, industry talks, research papers and demonstrations.
Here are some important dates:
Submissions (tutorials, industry talks, papers, demos) : 30 Jan 2009
Notification of acceptance: 06 Mar 2009
Camera-ready copy of papers : 27 Mar 2009
More information at the ICOODB 2009 web site.
Ted Selker On Innovation
This time I had the pleasure to interview Ted Selker.
Dr. Ted Selker develops and tests new user experiences. He spent ten years as an associate professor at the MIT Media Laboratory where he ran the Context Aware Computing group, co-directed the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, and directed the Counter Design Intelligence: product design of the future project. His work is noted for creating demonstrations of a world in which human intentions are recognized and respected in complex domains, such as kitchens, cars, on phones, and in email. Ted’s work takes the form of prototyping concept products supported by cognitive science research.
Prior to joining the MIT faculty in November 1999, his work at IBM gained him the title of IBM Fellow where Ted directed the User Systems Ergonomics Research Lab. He has served as a consulting professor at Stanford University, worked at Xerox PARC and Atari Research Labs, and taught at Hampshire College, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Brown University.
Ted’s research has contributed to products ranging from notebook computers to operating systems. For example, his design of the TrackPoint in-keyboard pointing device and many of his other inventions are used in notebook computers, his visualizations have been responsible for performance and usability improvements in products, and his adaptive help system has been part of many IT products as well. Ted’s work has resulted in numerous awards, patents, and papers and has often been featured in the press. He was co-recipient of the Computer Science Policy Leader Award for Scientific American 50 in 2004, the American Association for People with Disabilities Thomas Paine Award for his work on voting technology in 2006 and the Telluride Tech fest award in 2008.
1. What is “Innovation” for you?
Innovation is presenting and solving problems in a novel way to changing the way things are done.
2. Who are your favorite innovators?
There are so many innovators and many in my life that I enjoy: Marvin Minsky who invented the confocal microscope, etc., John Mccarthy who invented time sharing and many elements of modern programming, Victor Scheinman who made some of the most successful industrial robots, Toshiuki Ikeda who made the Thinkpad happen, Larry Page and Sergay Brin who created the modern best company, Rob Barrett who invented the way that Atomic Force Microscop`s know where they are, etc., Will Wright who shows with every new game he makes such as Spore shows how vast exploring environments can be at least as compelling as the typical brutality video games of the past.
3. What do you consider are the most promising innovations of the last 3 years?
The theories that show that quantum dots could greatly reduce the bandgap problem in photovoltaics potentially bringing their efficiency over 80%. The new breed of Lithium phosphate batteries that can be recharged thousands of times. The LEDs that are among the most efficient lights ever made. The Flash memories that are large and cheep enough to replace disks and be faster and more efficient. Ubiquitous mobile devices with useful applications and capabilities. The WII game.
4. What does it help to become a successful innovator?
If you Fill your mind with problems, fill your mind with parts to solve problems, appreciate solutions, appreciate contributions from wherever they come, and need to make solutions happen you can become an innovator.
5. Is there a price to pay to be an innovator? Which one?
An innovator is often uncomfortable and making others uncomfortable.
6. What are the rewards to be an innovator?
Helping the world around you.
7. What are in your opinion the top 3 criteria for successful innovation?
A problem worth solving. A problem that can be solved. A problem that will have enough resources and authorization to allow itself to be solved by the people trying to innovate.
8. What would you recommend to young people who wish to pursue innovation?
Enjoy improving your ideas of how to solve problems with others. Enjoy getting people to allow you to solve problems.
Practice really following through solving problems.
9. In your opinion how can we create a culture that supports and sustains innovation?
I have a dream I call Excubate which supports early stage technology business development. I plan to support innovation while delaying commitment to specific parts of the solutions.
10. What do you think stops/slows down innovation?
Confusing your self esteem and ego with peoples acceptance of any specific innovative proposal.
10+1 .Do you think becoming an innovator can be taught? If yes, how?
Absolutely. I love to teach workshops on invention and innovation. Get people to have a habit of defining questions as part of problems they see. Get them to have habits of appreciating others ideas and improve on them. Get people to try out more than one idea, in their head, and in every other way the can: design on paper, build moch ups, build prototypes, get authorization to disementate.
10+2. What is in your opinion the influence that a “location” (country/region) plays with respect to the possibility to be a
successful innovator?
We are surrounded by the problems of where we are: the physical (my water is more expensive than my electric bill in California) the people (the people I know talk about other things than a leak in their plumbing) the tools (I have a milling machine in my shop, I have an osciliscope on my desk, I have a programming environment in my computer), the encouragement of others (my partner asks me to go down and sit at my desk)
10+3. What would you recommend to make a “location” attractive for innovation?
To make a location attractive, make it easy to come to, full of tools and people and other things that can make the ideas turn into working and used solutions.
##
I have published the third series of user reports on using technologies for storing and handling persistent objects.
I have defined “users” in a very broad sense, including: CTOs, Technical Directors, Software Architects, Consultants, Developers, and Researchers.
The third series includes 7 new user reports from the following users:
– Peter Train, Architect, Standard Bank Group Limited, South Africa.
– Biren Gandhi, IT Architect and Technical Consultant, IBM Global Business Services, Germany.
– Sven Pecher, Senior Consultant, IBM Global Business Services, Germany.
– Frank Stuch, Managing Consultant, IBM Global Business Services, Germany.
– Hiroshi Miyazaki, Software Architect, Fujitsu, Japan.
– Robert Huber, Managing Director, 7r gmbh, Switzerland.
– Thomas Amberg, Software Engineer, Oberon microsystems, Switzerland.
I asked each users a number of equal questions, among them what experience do they have in using the various options available for persistence for new projects and what are the lessons learned in using such solution(s).
“Some of our newer systems have been developed in-house using an object oriented paradigm. Most (if not all) of these use Relational Database systems to store data and the “impedance mismatch” problem does apply” says Peter Train from Standard Bank.
The lessons learned using Object Relational mapping tools confirm the complexity of such technologies.
Peter Train explains: “The most common problems that we have experienced with object Relational mapping tools are:
i) The effort required to define mappings between the object and the relational models; ii) Difficulty in understanding how the mapping will be implemented at runtime and how this might impact performance and memory utilization. In some cases, a great deal of effort is spent tweaking configurations to achieve satisfactory performance.”
Frank Stuch from IBM Global Business Services has used Hibernate, EJB 2 and EJB 3 Entity Beans in several projects.
Talking about his experience with such tools he says: “EJB 2 is too heavy weight and outdated by EJB 3. EJB 3 is not supported well by development environments like Rational Application Developer and not mature enough. In general all of these solutions give the developer 90% of the comfort of an OODBMS with well established RDBMS.
The problem is that this comfort needs a good understanding of the impedance mismatch and the consequences on performance (e.g. “select n+1 problem”). Many junior developers don’t understand the impact and therefore the performance of the generated/created data queries are often very poor. Senior developers can work very efficient with e.g. Hibernate. “
In some special cases custom solutions have been built, like in the case of Thomas Amberg who works in mobile and embedded software and explains “We use a custom object persistence solution based on sequential serialized update operations appended to a binary file”.
The new 7 reports and the complete series of user reports are available for free download.
I plan to continue to publish users reports on a regular base.
My interview to Mike Card has triggered an intense discussion (still ongoing), on the pros and cons of considering LINQ as the best option for a future Java query API.
There is a consensus that a common query mechanism for odbms is needed.
However, there is quite a disagreement on how this should be done. In particular, some see LINQ as a solution, provided that LINQ is also available for Java. Others on the contrary do not like LINQ, but would rather prefer a vendor neutral solution, for example based on SBQL.
You can follow the discussion here.
I have listed here some useful resources I published in ODBMS.ORG – related to this discussion:
Erik Meijer, José Blakeley
The Microsoft perspective on ORM
An Interview in ACM Queue Magazine with Erik Meijer and José Blakeley. With LINQ (language-integrated query) and the Entity Framework, Microsoft divided its traditional ORM technology into two parts: one part that handles querying (LINQ) and one part that handles mapping (Entity Framework).| September 2008 |
Panel Discussion “ODBMS: Quo Vadis?
Panel discussion with Mike Card, Jim Paterson, and Kazimierz Subieta, on their views on on some critical questions related to Object Databases: Where are Object Database Systems going? Are Relational database systems becoming Object Databases?
Do we need a standard for Object Databases? Why ODMG did not succeed?
Java Object Persistence: State of the Union PART II
Panel discussion with Jose Blakeley (Microsoft), Rick Cattell (Sun Microsystems), William Cook (University of Texas at Austin), Robert Greene (Versant), and Alan Santos (Progress). The panel addressed the ever open issue of the impedance mismatch.
Java Object Persistence: State of the Union PART I
Panel discussion with Mike Keith: EJB co-spec lead, main architect of Oracle Toplink ORM, Ted Neward: Independent consultant, often blogging on ORM and persistence topics, Carl Rosenberger: lead architect of db4objects, open source embeddable object database. Craig Russell: Spec lead of Java Data Objects (JDO) JSR, architect of entity bean engine in Sun’s appservers prior to Glassfish, on their views on the current State of the Union of object persistence with respect to Java.
Stack-Based Approach (SBA) and Stack-Based Query Language (SBQL)
Kazimierz Subieta, Polish-Japanese Institute of Information Technology
Introduction to object-oriented concepts in programming languages and databases, SBA and SBQL
The Object-Relational Impedance Mismatch
Scott Ambler, IBM. Scott explores the technical and the cultural impedance mismatch between the relational and the object world.
ORM Smackdown – Transcript
Ted Neward, Oren “Ayende” Eini. Transcripts of the Panel discussion “ORM Smackdown” on different viewpoints on Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) systems, courtesy of FranklinsNet.
OOPSLA Panel Objects and Databases
William Cook et.al. Transcript of a high ranking panel on objects and databases at the OOPSLA conference 2006, with representatives from BEA, db4objects, GemStone, Microsoft, Progress, Sun, and Versant.
I noticed a news on an additional source of Impedance mismatch: Cloud Computing…
Geir Magnusson, vice president of engineering and co-founder of 10gen, presented at a conference called Web 2.0 Expo, a talk: “The Sequel to SQL: Why You Won’t Find Your RDBMS in the Clouds.”
Magnusson said “an RDBMS is what you need, but not in the cloud.”
Magnusson seems to support O/R mapping: “O/R mapping blends the power of an RDBMS with the programming simplicity of an ODBMS [object database management system],” Magnusson said, noting that there is support for O/R mapping in Java, Python, Ruby, .NET and Groovy. “O/R mapping is everywhere.”
However, the series of interviews with users indicate that O/R mapping is only one way (and not the most simple one) of getting around the impedance mismatch between object-oriented languages and data stored in a relational system.
