IBM solidDB

IBM® solidDB® is relational in-memory database software that delivers extreme speed, performing up to ten times faster than conventional databases. It uses the familiar SQL language to allow applications to achieve throughput of tens-to-hundreds of thousands of transactions per second with response times measured in microseconds, also providing applications extreme data availability with sub-second failover.

What's new in solidDB v7.0

IBM solidDB Universal Cache Feature
IBM solidDB Universal Cache is the industry’s first relational, in-memory database caching feature that accelerates virtually all leading relational databases, increasing their performance up to ten times. It uses the familiar SQL language to enable applications to achieve tens of thousands of transactions per second with response times measured in microseconds. By combining the relational, in-memory data management capabilities of solidDB Universal Cache with the versatility of disk-based databases, applications benefit from the best of both worlds.

Achieves Extreme Speed with In-Memory Database Technology
solidDB delivers extreme speed because it keeps data in main memory at all times rather than on disk. Applications can take advantage of its capability through standard ODBC, JDBC, SQL interfaces. solidDB works under the premise that all data to be accessed will be in main memory, all the time.

Keeps Data Persistent and Recoverable
While solidDB works under the premise that all data is accessible in main memory, all the time, solidDB also writes updated data to disk, and uses checkpointing and transaction logging mechanisms so that the recoverability of the data is ensured.

Provides Extreme Availability
solidDB delivers extreme availability enabling applications to recover from system failures in less than a second providing the extreme data availability required by performance-critical applications. Using a two-node, hot-standby configuration, solidDB maintains copies of the data synchronized between two solidDB nodes.

Combines High Availability and Extreme Speed
solidDB can boost performance even further by providing a hot-standby configuration where read operations can be load-balanced across primary and hot-standby solidDB instances transparently to the application. To take advantage of load balancing, an application uses solidDB's ODBC or JDBC drivers that maintain only one logical connection to both primary and hot-standby solidDB instances. In this configuration, write transactions are automatically directed to the primary solidDB node, and read transactions can be directed either only to the hot-standby solidDB node, or load-balanced across primary and hot-standby solidDB instances, without application developers having to write code. Using load-balancing can yield up to a 100% performance improvement, while hot-standby configuration also provides high availability of solidDB nodes with subsecond failover in the event of a failure.

Balances Data Safety, Application Throughput and Recovery Time
solidDB offers several high availability configuration options that specify how primary and secondary database servers are synchronized, which can be selected at the system, session and transaction levels. This enables you to balance throughput, durability, and recovery time with unprecedented flexibility.

Lowers costs
The extreme speed and extreme availability of solidDB address the need for businesses to always keep data available and accessible, avoiding the costs associated with both planned and unplanned outages and delays. solidDB further reduces costs because it can be controlled by the application and run virtually unattended, letting businesses accelerate deployments and reduce administrative costs resulting in a lower total cost-of-ownership. Furthermore, because solidDB can run on commodity as well as best-of-breed hardware, it provides you with a variety of proven, cost-effective solutions.

solidDB Universal Cache features and benefits:

Adapts to different application and deployment needs

solidDB Universal Cache feature can be deployed as a read-only cache or as a read-write cache. When configured as read-write cache there are two possible deployment options.

When configured as a read-only cache and the data is owned by the backend database, the data stored in solidDB Universal Cache cannot be modified by the application. In this configuration, applications can modify the data directly in the backend database and changes can be synchronized to the in-memory cache, transaction by transaction, automatically or on-demand. This configuration is ideal for applications that require fast access to data that changes occasionally, such as price lists, or reference or lookup data.

When configured as a read-write cache and the data is owned by the cache, applications can read, add, modify, or delete data in the in-memory cache, but not in the backend database.

Changes are propagated from the in-memory cache to the backend database, transaction by transaction, automatically, or on-demand. This configuration is useful for applications that have stringent service-level agreements that demand short response times, for a variety of data intensive operations. Finally, when configured as a read-write cache and the data ownership is shared; applications can update the same data in both the in-memory cache as well as in the backend database at the same time. In this case, changes to the data can be automatically propagated in both directions. Conflicts are detected and resolved by using pre-defined conflict resolution methods. This configuration is especially useful when applications need to update the data in the backend database while the data is also cached for read-write access.

Using a dynamic and flexible SQL passthrough capability, applications can access both cached and non-cached data, negating the need to maintain an explicit connection to the back-end database. This pass-through feature checks if the SQL statement can be handled locally by the cached tables, or if it must be redirected to the back-end database. The SQL Pass-through capability can be enabled at a session or a transaction level and can be changed dynamically at runtime, thus allowing the application a wide degree of flexibility and greater level of control.

When configuring solidDB Universal Cache data schema, users have great flexibility in deciding what data to cache. Users can:

With flexible and configurable data aging, solidDB Universal Cache optimizes the amount of memory allocated to cache and ensures that the data closest to the application is also the most relevant and active. solidDB Universal Cache provides full control of the aging of data to the application layer.
The purpose of data aging is to allow an application to remove, or age, outdated or otherwise obsolete data from the cache while still preserving it in the back-end, disk-based database.

The application can perform data aging through simple SQL statements specifying which data to remove from solidDB Universal Cache tables. The application can specify the aging to occur at a transaction level, or at a session level. As well, data aging can run automatically as the solidDB Universal Cache feature continues bi-directional replication with a backend database, ensuring that data removed from solidDB Universal Cache is not replicated back into the cache from the backend database.

IBM solidDB meets the performance and reliability demands of real-time applications.