Borland International Inc, Scotts Valley, California has finally announced version 4.0 of its Interbase database server system, with added features to hook personal computers into client-server-based systems. The product uses the IDAPI Integrated Database Application Programming Interface database communications interface, and has been enhanced to respond directly to native desktop commands simultaneously with SQL. The code that enables record-based access to server data is built into the server’s query interpreter and optimiser, which according to Borland means that there is no overhead on server performance. The software has also been given the ability to make data seem local on the desktop. This means that users accessing data from the personal computer can scroll through the data in real time; bi-directional pointers between all records mean that personal computers do not need to re-run queries on the server to do this. Similarly, users can commit a transaction and preserve their cursor’s position. Borland says that the product also makes it easier to communicate updated records to the user, thanks to a cache update function. The user can express interest in a set of records and then an event alerter tells the user when a change has been made. Other features include explicit locks, where the user can ask for a lock to remain on a record even when an update has been committed. The firm has developed the product to support the ANSI SQL 2 standard at the entry level, and has included some elements of the ANSI SQL 3 standard, which is still in an embryonic form. A journalling manager has been installed to speed up recoveries from system failures, and Borland has made it possible to access data from the database in more than one language simultaneously. The product will be even later than Borland initially said; the company, which has long had a reputation for tardiness, was originally planning to ship in mid-1993 but then promised a release in the first quarter this year (CI No 2,232). Now it is talking about a phased rollout in the second half of the year. One would have thought that chief executive Philippe Kahn would have learned his lesson after the firm shipped its Paradox for Windows relational database management system late. Interbase 4 will be available for Windows NT and OS/2, and as a Novell Inc NetWare Loadable Module, along with the traditional Unix and VMS systems, but pricing has not yet been announced.
