Ask Computer Inc’s Ingres Corp has created Ingres 6.4 by adding an Active Server feature to 6.3, in which Database Event Alerters automatically activate external application programs through SQL commands. This means that information in the database, such as inventory levels, can be monitored to activate external processes, such as faxing an order to a supplier, automatically through SQL commands – however, this is a facility Sybase reckons it’s offered for 18 months in its Open Server. Version 6.4 also brings the IngresStar distributed database server for Unix as well as gateways to DB2, IMS, RMS, Rdb and Allbase/SQL – intriguingly the presentation separated the IBM and other databases into two boxes, suggesting that Distributed Relational Database Architecture may be provided only for IBM databases. Also announced was Windows 4GL for Windows 3.0, shipping in January, and VisionPro for MS-DOS and Unix. It is also pledging that 6.4 will be available simultaneously under all major environments in 90 days in the US and 120 days for Europe.
